Beautiful Iris
by 19844twfic
Summary: when a seemingly cut-and-dried incident calls out Torchwood early one morning all is not as it originally seems. Alien technology leads the team into a trap of danger and curiosity, propelling them to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces. Split into two, the team must find a way back before past events puts one member of Torchwood into danger. Jack/Ianto, Owen/Tosh
1. Chapter 1

Heavy rain pelted the windscreen of the SUV as it raced down the deserted Cardiff street. Owen grabbed onto the seat in the back and gritted his teeth; Ianto was exceeding the speed limit again, almost eighty miles per hour this time and loving every minute. The large vehicle skidded around a tight corner and sent Toshiko flying across Owen's lap, her hair falling in front of her face and, as she looked up to her skinny colleague through her fringe, he held back a smirk.

"Watch where you're putting your hands Sato," he said, pushing her back upright. "I'm not a groping toy."

"Owen, if I could have avoided having any kind of personal contact with you I would've" Toshiko fixed her hair and managed to stay upright as the SUV skidded around another narrow bend. "Believe it or not, not every woman in the world falls to your feet."

"Who said anything about feet?"

She looked at the reading on her hand-held computer and gazed out of the window, trying to see past the beads of rain that tumbled down the glass. "Ianto, take your next left and then your second right."

The Captain clung to the dashboard with a grin like a Cheshire cat and glanced over his shoulder. The rush of adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt filled his eyes, almost glazing them over. "I love a good chase!"

The SUV skidded around another corner and this time Owen fell into Toshiko's chest face down; she opened her mouth to speak just as Owen lifted himself upright. "One word!" he warned.

"I wasn't going to say a thing."

Gwen looked at her mobile and stared at the text message on the screen as she flew from left to right, almost dropping the phone twice, as Ianto manoeuvred the vehicle. It was another message from Rhys, another worried message asking if she was coming home. She dropped her phone when Ianto finally sent the SUV into a hairpin turn, resulting in a perfectly parallel parking position beside the curb. Reaching for her phone, she quickly text Rhys back. She hated the lies, they were necessary lies, but a lie was still a lie.

"Nice work Ianto," Jack said, releasing himself from the confines of the seat belt. "Couldn't have done it better myself."

"Thank you, sir."

"You really know how to set my heart racing."

"Good to know." There was a glint in his eye, an inner satisfaction that nobody but Jack ever noticed.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Tosh said, putting her hand against her forehead.

"It'll be fine when the world stops spinning," Owen added, leaning against the backrest. "Ianto, you need driving lessons, mate."

The Welshman hopped out of the SUV and closed the door, then walked around to the rear door and opened it, popping his head inside. "What's wrong with it?"

"One day you're going to kill us."

"You're alive now aren't you?"

"Obviously."

"Then stop complaining."

"Are you going to sit in the car all morning or are you going to get to work?" Jack asked, jumping out the SUV and slamming the door.

The two corpses lay in the alleyway, lying almost on top of each other; the blood was being washed away by the torrential rain that hammered the pavement, running in a stream down the pathway and disappearing down into the drain. Owen crouched down beside the bodies and put on his gloves.

"Cause of death?" Jack asked, putting his hands on his hips as he looked down at him.

"Weevil, or at least that would be my guess, I really couldn't say without a post mortem."

"Cut-and-dried then?" he asked.

"More or less."

"Okay then what's say we pack these babies up and head back then?"

"There's nothing else we can do here."

"Ianto!" Jack called, pointing to the corpses at his feet. "Two more for the wagon!"

Toshiko walked over to the corpses with her hand-held device and scanned them carefully, glaring at her screen and wiping the rain from it; it was just lucky they were waterproof. The water dripped off her eyelashes in large beads, almost blinding her view. "Everything seems fine. Low level radiation, but nothing out of the ordinary for us. I'd say this was a bog-standard case; boring but quick," she said standing up and putting her away her equipment. She wiped the rain away from her face again. "But, where's the Weevil?"

"No reports of it," Ianto said. "Maybe I'll get an early night for once."

"That's no fun." Jack pouted. "Who wants to sleep when there are weevils to hunt?"

"Me."

"Well, these bodies have been here at least four hours by the looks of it, so I think it's safe to say that all the Weevils are tucked up underneath the city again." Owen said, helping Ianto drag one of the bodies up by their arms.

"I'll get these back to the hub then." Ianto hoisted the corpse onto his shoulder, with the help of Owen, then groaned when blood splattered onto his face. "I love field work."

"Glamorous isn't it?" Tosh joked.

"Champagne and strawberries have nothing on Weevil shit and blood splatters."

"Come on le'ts get these loaded. I need a coffee."

"Is that it?" Gwen asked, looking around at the team. Ianto paused and turned around, rolling his eyes at the Gwen-morality speech he could tell was coming. "Two people; dead, and that's all you say? We take two minutes to look at them without even thinking of who they are, where they come from or who might be missing them and then just pack up and leave, just like that?"

"We're not the police Gwen," Jack said. "Identifying and informing just isn't our bag. We just show up and do what needs be. I genuinely thought you would have got the hang of it by now."

"But what about respect?" She asked the question, but nobody answered; nobody ever answered.

Toshiko turned away and walked down the alley towards the SUV with Jack who was now carrying the second corpse over his shoulders. Ianto started to move again; the body was getting heavy. The only person beside her was Owen, who was fastening up his examination bag. "What about respect for the dead, Owen? You're a doctor for God's sake, it must mean something to you"

"Gwen," Owen said, hurling the bag over his shoulder, almost drowning in the rain. "It's one o'clock in the morning, and I've yet to have my coffee so try talking to me about respect at a tolerable hour."

"Where's your humanity?" She shouted down the street after them. "What happened to your compassion, or didn't you have any to start with? Is that a requirement for Torchwood?"

Jack took a deep breath and deposited the corpse in the SUV with a thud before taking his time to walk back to Gwen who stood in the street, soaked with rain. Her hands stayed firmly docked to her hips, with one foot slightly forward and a scowl on her face. Her mouth was open, and her eyes half closed as she tried to see through the rain at the figure walking towards her.

"If I spent all my time grieving for the people that we scrape off the pavement, or searching for long lost relatives to break the news to I would never do anything else. You have to separate yourself; you know this."

"Separate myself from my humanity?" She scoffed. "No thanks, Jack."

"I hired you for your dose of humanity," he reminded her. "But you have to remember that we're not here to feel sorry for them, or to feel sad for them. We're here to do our job and protect the rest of them so that they don't meet the same fate."

"But these people, all these dead people, am I really supposed to pretend I don't care?"

"You can't do anything for these people now, they're gone Gwen."

"I can't just separate myself the way that you do, I have feelings Jack, I'm not an immortal monster like you; I'm not heartless," she spat and watched Jack as he lost his usually calm composure.

"You think I'm a monster?" Jack asked. "You think that I'm a heartless monster because I don't react the way you do?"

"That's exactly why Jack. You have no human emotion left."

"Then maybe I am a monster, but sometimes a monster is the only thing there to stop the others from getting through! So if you don't like it, if you can't get used to the way that we operate, then you know what you can do. You know where the door is!"

"Right through a large dose of Retcon I would imagine." She stepped closer to him.

"You would imagine right."

"That seems to be your answer for everything. If anyone even comes so close as to finding out about your little club or what you do, you slip them a dose of Retcon and they wake up none the wiser."

"You know how Torchwood is and how important it is that we stay under the radar. Our business is a need to know business." He turned away and started to walk down the street. "Now collect your things and get in the SUV. Go back to the hub and do your job without the side-order of emotional blackmail if at all possible."

"Jack!" Ianto's voice commanded from the SUV. "I think you had better come and see this." 


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you think it is?" Ianto asked, knitting his eyebrows together in concentration as he looked over Jack's shoulder at the object.

"I don't know."

Jack held the small spherical object in the palm of his hand and inspected it closely. It was matt black in colour and cold to the touch, with deep ridges and purple lights that flickered on and off in what seemed to be a completely random fashion. It was beautiful and delicate, with a strange scent that seemed to have a lavender aroma and when the lights flashed, it illuminated his face with a violet glow.

"Any ideas, Tosh?" He asked, holding it out to her.

"Not really." She sighed, and took it from him to inspect. She turned it over and, camouflaged well within the structure, she spied a small flat button carved delicately into the device. Warily, she pressed it and waited; all the purple lights went out and several green lights flashed in sync with a high pitched beep that quickened slightly when she turned around to face the other direction. The aroma changed too, and the beautiful lavender and honey scent vanished without a trace, almost as though it had never been there at all. "The smell," she said, confused as she sniffed the air. "It's gone."

"Sensory disguise system," Jack smiled. "Oh that's old school! I haven't seen that in years."

"So, it disguises itself with a scent to try and make it look like something attractive, when really it's something else?" Gwen asked, then smiled. "Like Owen's aftershave on a Saturday night then?"

"That's uncalled for." Owen said. "I wear quality aftershave, and I'll have you know that a certain kind of woman finds me very attractive."

"Yeah." Ianto agreed, without the tiniest hint of an audible chuckle, or a smile. "The desperate kind."

"What is this, pick on Owen day?"

"I've got it!" Tosh exclaimed. "It's a tracking device." She smiled with amazement, her eyes wide with wonder. "For some reason it's camouflaged, maybe a kind of safety mechanism, or a diversion, but it's definitely a tracker, it's tracking something right now."

"Tracking what?"

"No idea," Tosh sighed audibly again, continuing to walk past Jack; the beeps continued to get faster and louder. "Weevils, or some other life form? Of course it might be something completely different; other technology, radiation. There's a list of infinite possibilities to consider."

"Alternatively," Owen interrupted, "it could just be a useless do-hickey."

"I doubt it, when was the last time that someone was murdered for a useless do-hickey?" she asked.

"Murdered? Who said it was murder?" He looked around pointedly. "I'm pretty sure it was just a standard Weevil attack."

"I'm with Tosh on this one," Ianto said as he pulled a chain off the other corpse and looked at the device. It was identical to the one he had found earlier, complete with the purple flashing lights and beautiful scent. "It seems a little bit odd that two people would get attacked by a Weevil on the same night that they just happened to be carrying these things. Doesn't it?"

"I don't believe in coincidences." Jack looked thoughtful and took both devices, activating the second the way that Tosh had the first. "They have the same signal, that's enough for me to be suspicious."

"Let me see them again?" Ianto asked. "They look familiar."

"In the archive?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so. They just look familiar."

"Familiar how?"

"I dunno, maybe from Torchwood one?"

"What do we think it is then?" Gwen asked.

"I'm with Tosh." He looked around at the hopeful eager eyes. "Maybe they track each other, all the devices track each other until they can be synchronised; these two are already synchronised, so maybe they're looking for a third?"

"Ianto; I love you!" Jack enthused. "You really are more that a pretty face and a nice pert ass."

"I do my best."

"Now, I say we follow this signal and see just where those two were heading," Jack said, looking expectantly at Ianto. "Lead the way Ianto."

"Great, I do love a wild Goose chase at one o'clock in the morning," Owen mumbled to himself as he followed the others down the alleyway.

They walked down the alley and followed the signals. The device led them through several of the dark alleyways and towards a few large warehouse buildings. The lights on the contraption started to blink at a faster pace until, suddenly, they stopped and a static red light shone out into the darkness.

Ianto looked at the building in front of him and then back to the device. Most of the windows were broken, and those of which weren't looked black with dirt. The brickwork seemed flimsy, as though it was in the process of falling down, and the roof was barely there; a skeleton, burnt through in places with only a few tiles still in tact. To say it looked unsafe was an understatement. The wooden door was green, with old chipped paint and gaps between the two doors. Even the padlock seemed old, and just like the hinges, looked rusted into place.

"This is it," Ianto said. "The signals continue in there." The substandard wooden door looked as though it would fall open with one gust of wind and rattled dangerously in the strong breeze. "Gorgeous place."

"Okay." Jack walked up to the door and peeked through the cracks in the wood. "It's dead in there, but we don't want to take any chances." He pulled his Webley revolver from his holster, and with three firm kicks from his boot, the door swung open.

The others filtered in behind him, lighting every corner with their torches and covering the exists with their guns. Ianto moved beside Gwen, staying out of the way of a swinging roof beam that threatened to fall at any moment.

"Why do I not like this place?" he whispered.

"Because you fear for your life perhaps?" She smiled and nudged him a little. "It's a bit rickety."

"Rickety? It's beyond rickety. It's a death-trap."

"They're solid these old buildings," Gwen said, "they look flimsy, but they're sound really."

A piece of debris broke free from the ceiling and fell down in front of them; the Welshman stepped back, taking Gwen with him and watched the decayed wood smash as it hit the ground. Gwen put her hand on Ianto's shoulder as thanks before they stepped over the debris and continued to make their way through the warehouse.

"Oh yes," Ianto droned sarcastically. "Solid."

"There's nothing here," Gwen said, moving beside Jack as he walked through the dark room cautiously. "If anything is living here it must have a death wish."

"There's always something."

"It's empty!"

"Obviously not that empty." Tosh pointed to the devices that Ianto was holding. "We have a signal."

A familiar growl sounded from the darkness and Owen lit the area with his torch, illuminating a Weevil who turned before disappearing. "Not empty," he said, "not even a little bit."

"You and Tosh take care of the Weevil, we'll go after the signal."

Gwen watched Toshiko and Owen go before turning to Jack, glaring.

"What?" he asked, innocent.

"Do you really think it's wise to send those two off alone?"

"It's one Weevil, Owen and Tosh can take care of one Weevil by themselves. We need to concentrate on the job at hand." Jack turned towards Ianto who was looking down at the device. The lights had started slowly blinking again and when he turned to face the opening of a long corridor they started to flash erratically. "Ianto, what's happening with that signal?"

"That way." Ianto gestured to the corridor. "It seems pretty strong."

"Then that's the way we go," Jack said, shining his torch into the darkness, "I do love dark places, don't you?"

"Depends," Ianto said.

"Why? Jack moved a little closer to him in he dark. "There's good times to be had in dark corners you know?" Ianto could feel the Captain's eyes on him, burning a gaze through his cool skin.

"I bet there are." Ianto smiled a little; he could feel the Captain's eyes on him, burning a gaze through his cool skin. "But usually if I'm going to have fun in dark corners I like them to be corners without Weevils occupying them at the time."

"And what's the fun in that?"

Gwen's voice echoed through the darkness. "I think what Ianto is trying to say, Jack, is that if he's going to be alone with you in a dark corner, he wants to be sure that if he feels teeth pressing against his neck, that it's just you getting a little kinky and not a Weevil trying to rip out his jugular."

OoOoOoOo

"Oh, God, that's disgusting!" Owen complained, wiping the bottom of his foot on the wall, trying to knock off the layer of Weevil shit. "What the hell do these things eat?"

"Stop moaning."

"It's past one in the morning and my caffeine levels are dangerously low, plus I just stepped into Weevil crap, so excuse me if I'm not perky enough for you. I'm shattered Tosh, I need my bed."

"I'm not asking you to be perky," Tosh said. "Just to be a little more tolerable. This isn't my idea of a fun night either." She focused her torch onto the ground and groaned; the trail had gone cold. "We're all run into the ground, but we have to get on with it until it quietens down."

"You really don't get it do you?" he said. "This is Torchwood, things don't quieten down or haven't you noticed that? In fact things have steadily started to get worse recently."

"I thought it was my imagination. All this rift activity, it feels like something is going on."

"There's always something going on."

"I've had some pretty strange readings lately."

"Any Weevils yet?" Jack's voice filtered into Owen's earpiece.

"Nope, no Weevils, no wild Goose's either," Owen said. "In fact there's fuck all down here. Can we go home yet?"

"Not yet, we're still chasing this signal. If it turns up nothing we'll head back."

"Well hurry up, we need caffeine. A lot of it."

"Ianto promises industrial strength," Jack said, chuckle playing deep in his throat. "As always the man's mind is on coffee and don't we just love him for it."

"I need it so much right now I'd probably shag him for it."

Suddenly, Ianto's voice came over the system. "You're not my type."

"If you need any help with the Weevil just let me know and I'll send Ianto down for some backup," Jack said. "He's good with Weevils."

"Don't you dare," the Welshman interrupted again. "He wants to shag me, I'm more scared of him than I am of the Weevil."

OoOoOoOoOoO

Ianto and Gwen led Jack into a large room, it was damp and odorous; the remaining wooden debris on the floor from old broken window frames was rotting, and when Gwen stepped on it her foot just went straight through without any resistance. The sound of scuttling rats made them squirm as they felt the vermin move around their feet, their tails dragging against their ankles.

"This place gives me the creeps," she said, moving closer to Ianto and bumping into him. "It's so dark, I can't even see my hand in front of my face." She jumped at the scuttling around her legs. "And all these bloody rats!"

"The term infestation comes to mind," he said, putting his hand on the small of her back, guiding her towards the direction of the signal. "You would think they would knock it down before it falls down."

"As long as it keeps standing whilst I'm in it, I really don't care." Gwen glanced over at the device that Ianto was holding and then back to her own. "The signal is getting stronger."

They walked a little further and then stopped.

"It's here," Ianto said, pointing to the ground. "X marks the spot."

Gwen looked at the two devices side-by-side, focusing on the lights as they ceased blinking.  
"but where is it?"

"There's nothing here," Jack said, shining his torch around the bare room, concentrating on a few rats gnawing on something in the corner. "Unless you want to count Roland and his friends."

"It has to be here." Ianto looked around the room. "The signal leads us right to this spot, it has to be here."

"But it's not, there's nothing here,"

"Well it can't be tracking nothing, can it?"

"Unless it's a trap?" Gwen offered. "It wouldn't be the first time.

"Or hidden?" Ianto looked down at the ground and crouched down, shooing the rats away with the head of his torch. "It could just be camouflaged or something." She ran his gloved fingers over the ground, cringing as he felt a rat brush against his hand. Finally, Ianto rested his hands on a slightly raised patch, and picked something up. "Bingo!"

"Remind me to take you next time I go on an Easter egg hunt." Gwen said, illuminating it with her torch.

"Is that it?" Jack asked, shining light onto it as he stood to face them.

"I think so." Ianto took a closer look. "Although it doesn't fit to the mould of the others."

"It doesn't look the same." Jack took it and turned it over, dusting it off and inspecting it.

There was no denying that it was alien, but it didn't look like the others; where the first two devices were round in shape, this was square, and it was warm to the touch instead of cold like the others. The ridges were shallow, instead of deep, and the display showed no lights at all. He ran his fingers over the flat buttons and gazed up at Gwen and Ianto who looked a little nervous. He pushed the button in the centre of the device and jumped a little when it started to change shape, morphing from square to oblong with rounded edges. Another button appeared in the centre of a flashing green light.

"That's a little unusual," Gwen said.

"Intriguing though, don't you think?" Jack pressed the new button and watched as two panels slid away, revealing two square holes. "Is that all it does?"

"Maybe the other two devices slot into it." Ianto looked at the two other consoles, ran his fingers over the buttons and pressed them firmly. Two square tabs jolted out from the bottom of each device and Jack glared at them curiously.

"I wonder what they do." Jack took them, slotting the tabs into the holes and waited for a moment. "Maybe it's alien Lego," he chuckled.

"Don't say that, remember alien sudoku?" Gwen asked, "Remember that barrel of laughs?"

"Ahh, the Amok," Ianto reminisced. "That's something I would rather sooner forget.

"Well it doesn't seem to do anything." Jack looked at it again, focusing on one of the devices; it seemed to be melting. "Apart from melting."

Suddenly, the three devices started to burn and Jack let it fall from his hand, watching them as they merged into one object. A bright beam of white light shot out and hit the ceiling before engulfing the room, sucking in everything in sight.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Owen and Tosh felt the building shake and stepped away from a falling piece of debris.

"What the?" Owen held onto the wall he was standing beside.

Tosh felt the ground moving and lost her footing, banging her head on the hard stone wall as she fell.

"Are you okay?" Owen crouched down beside her.

"I think so."

"Come on." He helped her up and steadied her, putting his arm around her waist. "I think now would be a good time to get the hell out of here."

"Yeah."


	3. Chapter 3

"Jack?" Owen was almost yelling at him over the communications system now. He had tried five times with no luck, and the most he got was a static noise that echoed out into the dark of the night. "Ianto? Gwen?" he was starting to sound desperate.

"No answer?"

"No." Owen shone his torch down a hallway. "Maybe the tremor knocked their signal out."

"Ours are still in tact."

"They might have been closer to the centre of it, maybe that's why it didn't effect us." Owen was making excuses now, and even he didn't believe them.

"I suppose it's not impossible."

"They went down there." He pointed into the darkness. "That's where they'll be."

A beam fell from the ceiling, narrowly missing Tosh and she backed away from the dust that rose into the air, then settled on the ground like a blanket of rusty snow.

"It looks unsafe," she said. "What if something happened to them?"

"Well that's something that we need to find out." Owen looked at his teammate, possibly the only one he had and took her hand in his. He moved closer to her in the dark and tilted her chin to look at him, trying to calm the terror that glistened in her dark eyes."We'll be fine if we stick together and stay calm."

"Right." She took a deep breath and attempted a smile. "Calm."

He started to make his way through the darkness, the light of the torch creating his only line of vision and kept hold of her hand. He tried to sound brave. "They're going to be fine. It takes more than a blast to get rid of Jack, Gwen is too stubborn to die, and Ianto wouldn't leave his precious coffee machine to the hands of anyone else, especially me, so quit worrying girl." He squeezed her hand reassuringly. "We'll find them."

* * *

At first there was only a smell, not an unpleasant one by any means, but unfamiliar. It was hard to pinpoint, but it was a sort of summery smell, like the hay in the fields behind his Grandmother's house that he remembered growing up. It was like freshly cut grass and rain, wood chips and wet soil.

After the smell of summer and rain and countless other things registered themselves in his senses, he felt something hard underneath him. Stone; cold, wet and very hard stone with rough pebbles that stuck into his hips through his trousers . He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn't. The burning in his left hand was intense and the heaviness on his chest made him feel like he was being held down by something; Ianto felt like he was being crushed from both sides, like something was stopping him from moving.

There didn't seem to be any sound, just the vibration of rain against the ground and the faraway gust of the wind through the trees.

Tress?

Cardiff in the winter just didn't smell of summer and a rotting rat infested warehouses just didn't have an aroma of wood chips. The Warehouse was in the docklands, far away from the trees, and the feel of the scuttling rats over his skin had gone.

He felt like he was in Oz. He didn't know much but without even opening his eyes he was certain of one thing; Ianto Jones wasn't in Cardiff any more."

* * *

The whole building was dark, darker than it had before and the light of the torch, as bright as it was, didn't light much of the path. Every time Owen heard a creek he raised his light to the ceiling to check the structure before leading Toshiko further into the never-ending darkness.

"I don't like the sound of this place," she said. "It sounds like it's going to fall down at any moment."

"Well." Owen sighed and turned a corner, investigating the walls as he went. "We have three options. We can continue ahead until we find the others, turn back and hope they turn up, or get crushed to death by falling wooden beams. I'm kind of hoping it's either one or two."

"According to my readings the structure is flimsy and rotting, but it seems to be holding." Toshiko looked at her hand-held scanner, tapping away at the screen with her stylus, squinting to see. "I can't see any heat signals other than the two that belong to us, but then again the screen keeps flashing up an error, so I don't think it's in complete working order."

"What do you think we should do? Do we head back to the SUV or do we keep moving?"

"We've come this far and I know what Jack would do if it was the other way around; he'd search until he found us, alive or dead." Toshiko could feel her confidence fading, and her voice shook a little as she said the last word. "Owen, what if-"

"They're not dead."

* * *

Gwen groaned, touched her hand to her throbbing head and opened her eyes slowly. She looked around and tried to make out shapes in the dark, but everything just seemed to look sideways. It wasn't until she focussed on the ground that she realised that she was lying face down. Gwen cursed the throbbing in her head as she pushed herself up off the ground and sat up, looking around.

Her vision was a little blurred and she rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times to get it back. She tried to fight off the dull thud of her headache, but it felt like someone was trying to break out of her head from the inside with a metal bar. Gwen could taste what seemed to be her own blood in her mouth and her lip stung like it had been cut. She had no idea how long she had been there, but judging by the lack of blood it had obviously been a while.

It was dark, almost pitch black and it was hard to make anything out other than her immediate surroundings. She heard footsteps in the distance. The sound of heavy boots on stone echoed between the rain and the wind in the trees. She pulled her gun from her belt and pointed it blindly into the darkness.

"Who's there?" Gwen winced as she tried to pull herself to her feet. Her ankle felt weak and painful like it was broken, but as much as she tried she couldn't find the strength in it to get up.

"Are you alright Miss?" The voice was booming, but not unkind, with a thick Welsh accent.

"Stay back, I'm armed!" She warned, feeling around in her pocket for her pen torch . When she found it, she pointed it in his direction to try and see what she was dealing with. The light was weak and she couldn't see much, but she could just about make out a tall man wearing big leather boots and a tweed cap. He was wielding a shotgun, but it was folded harmlessly over his arm, probably unloaded. "Who are you?"

"I should be asking you that Miss, this is my courtyard."

He moved closer, walking into the light of her torch and she glared at him, aiming her Glock. He was taller than he had looked before, touching on six three, with workman's boots, old mud-stained trousers and a brown tweed waistcoat. His face was kind with dull blue eyes that seemed to look into her and a shadow of rough stubble on his chin.

"Tell me who you are or I'll shoot." She warned again, this time loading the barrel. She pushed herself back towards a wall with her good leg. "I'm not kidding around. How did I get here?"

"I'm Joseph Hughes, I own this land so why don't you just explain who you are first and we'll take it from there.."

"Where am I?" Gwen ignored his request.

"On my land, now tell me your name Miss or I have a good mind to call the police and report you for trespassing."

"Gwen." She gave in. "Gwen Cooper."

"That's a local sounding name all right, but you're not from around here. I would know your face."

"You won't tell me where I am so how would I know if I'm from around here or not."

"You look hurt." Mr Hughes walked towards her cautiously and put his gun down on the ground, moving towards her. "I've put my gun down, so there's no reason to be scared."

"I'm fine, now back up a little and keep your hands where I can see them."

"You're being silly." He stepped back a little bit and put his hands up as instructed. "Let me help you up. I'm not going to hurt you"

"I mean it, keep your distance."

* * *

Owen led Tosh into the last room in the building; it looked different from the others. Where the rest were filled with scuttling rats, this one was empty save for a black spiral in the centre of the room around six feet in circumference. The door had been blown off its rusted hinges and lay on the floor cracked and burnt out.

"This doesn't look good." Toshiko crouched down in the middle of the room and scanned the black ring with her device. "It's loaded with radiation."

"Harmful?"

"Not unless you do something stupid like lick it, or touch it. No, it's contained to this ring but it's high in radioactive properties."

"Apart from the radioactive licorice in the middle of the room, and the door blown off its hinges does anything else strike you about this room, Tosh?"

"The lack of infestation?"

"Exactly." He sighed and moved his torch around the room. "Whatever happened here, it was big enough to make rats run for their lives. Those things stick around to gnaw the toes off half-living Weevils, so it had to be something pretty scary to make them scarper."

"So where are Jack and the others?"

"Not here evidentially." He focussed his light on an open door at the opposite end of the room. "Looks like the rats weren't the only ones to scarper." He sighed. "Nice of them to let us know, ey?

Jack awoke to the sound of heavy breathing against his ear and a strange sound that he couldn't quite describe, like someone trying to eat something that they couldn't quite bite through. He could feel his coat being pulled away from him and a smell of old hay wafted in the cold breeze. Opening his eyes, Jack stared directly into the face of a large white horse chewing on his coat.

"Usually I love waking up with a stallion," he groaned, wrestling it for his coat before standing up. "Today, I'm not so enthusiastic. Funny that."

The horse bucked, raising onto his hind legs and let out a cry as he moved towards him; Jack backed away a little and grabbed the reins, pulling it back down, then stroked the length of his nose to calm it. The horse moved into the palm of Jack's hand and closed his eyes.

"Have you seen anyone else around here?" Jack asked. "Cute guy with cheekbones that you could cut diamonds on and painfully good tailoring?" The horse looked at him and started to chew on the lapels of his coat again. "No? What about a woman then, huh? Dark hair, an air of fuck you, and a nice tasty leather jacket?" He pulled his coat out of the horse's mouth again. "Don't chew the coat."

The horse looked at him, letting out a noisy breath from its nostrils.

"You're not a very observant witness," Jack said. "Although I suspect that you would do anything for a carrot."

The Captain took a deep breath and let go of the reins, patting the horse on the nose.

"Well if you see them tell them Jack was looking for them." He started to walk away and then turned back. "But, here's a word of warning." He pointed his finger at the horse. "Whatever you do, don't chew Ianto's Jacket - that man's tailoring is not to be messed with. If you ruin the line of his suit he'll ruin you."

The horse took a step back towards the other side of the stable and Jack wandered over to the door to open it. He took a deep breath and inhaled the air; wherever he was, it wasn't Cardiff, at least not twenty-first century Cardiff. The sky was black with a scattering of yellow stars and a clear crescent moon. He looked out into the darkness and spotted what looked like a farmhouse in the distance.

"Okay," he sighed to himself. "I wonder if anyone's home."

Jack walked out and closed the door firmly behind him, locking it to keep the horse safely inside. He made his way towards the courtyard that surrounded the building, looking around as he went. He stood still and listened to a sound in the distance; voices, two voices, and one of them very familiar.

"I don't know what it is that you think I'm going to do to you Miss, but I can assure you I'm not going to harm you."

"You just keep back, you hear me mate? Keep back."

Jack smiled a little and ran over towards the voices, almost slipping on the slippery stone as he tried to stop. He came face to face with him, offering his hand in an handshake.

"Captain Jack Harkness. Nice place you have here." He shook the man's hand and pulled Gwen to her feet, putting his arm around her waist to support her. "You okay?"

"Took you long enough, didn't it?"

"You know me, I like to make a dramatic entrance."

"Are you two together?" Joseph asked, relaxing a little.

"She's a little bit jumpy. We had a bit of a confrontation with a scary fellow a few days ago and ever since she's been a little bit defensive."

"I see."

"She's a harmless little kitten really."

"Kitten?" Gwen snapped her neck to look at him. "Who the hell are you calling a-"

"She's just jumpy." Jack nudged her in the side. "Certainly nothing to be scared of."

"You need to keep your woman under control, sir," he said.

"Under-" Gwen started to speak, but Jack nudged her in the side again.

"I will."

"Be on your way," Joseph said.

"Look, clearly she's hurt. Would you be kind enough to let us come inside?" Jack asked. "Just for a moment until I see whether she needs a Doctor."

"That thing." Mr. Hughes pointed to the gun that she was holding. "What is it?"

"It's nothing," Jack said. "Just something she bought it in the city. I told her it was no good but she insisted and you know what ladies are like; they see something pretty and they just have to have it."

"Right." Joseph looked at them with suspicion, but broke into a smile. "Follow me."

Mr. Hughes led the way to the house and Jack started to follow, helping Gwen along. He grabbed the gun and put it in his pocket. "You had better not wave this thing around, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

"Where are we?" she asked.

"No idea. I think the more important question is-"

"When are we?"

"Exactly."

"Any guesses?" Gwen groaned as she hopped alongside Jack.

"Judging by his reaction and the way he's dressed, somewhere between the nineteenth century and the mid twentieth."

"Well that's specific!" She scalded in a whisper. "How am I meant to get home? I told Rhys that I would be back tonight. He's making Indian and everything."

"Calm down, Tosh will sort it. Technically you're not even born yet, so you can't be late home. I'm sure your curry will be still warm when you get there."

"We're trapped in God only knows what century in the middle of nowhere, with a guy in a Tweed hat who seems to think that I'm some damsel in distress that needs controlling. I will not calm down."

"Why can't you do as I say, just this one time because you're really not helping things here."

"Well excuse me for being just a little concerned about going back in sodding time!"

"Have you seen Ianto?" Jack asked suddenly, losing track of the conversation.

"I thought he must be with you."

Jack stopped and darted his eyes around the courtyard, scanning the land with his eyes. "He has to be here somewhere."

"Come on!" Joseph called. "The rain is holding off, but I can smell it in the air. We need to get her inside before she gets a chill on her chest."

"Has there been anyone else pass through here tonight?" Jack asked, hurrying Gwen towards Joseph. "A young man, about-"

"No. Nobody passes through here, you're the first people we've seen in weeks."

"It's important that I find him."

"Do you want to come inside or not?"

"I need to find him," Jack said desperately. "He's like a brother to me."

"Alright." Joseph stopped and turned towards Jack. "We'll get her inside away from the cold. I'll wake my daughter and ask her to sit with her, then we'll come back out and find him."

"Thank you."

* * *

"We can't just leave them!" Toshiko shouted as they walked towards the SUV.

"They're not here."

"They have to be!"

"They're not." Owen opened the door to the vehicle and sat the driver's seat, turning to look at her. "There are no human heat signals in there, the alien do-hickey's are nowhere to be seen and we've searched the place over and over several times. Tosh, they're not there."

"Then where are they?"

"Well they've either gone to the pub for a pint, which is highly unlikely, or something has happened to them."

"Maybe the signal led them somewhere else?"

"No." Owen shook his head defiantly. "Jack would not leave, not without telling us. If they're not inside and they're not here then something has happened."

"Maybe they're just in a no coverage area."

"This is Torchwood. People in Torchwood disappear; they get eaten, or sucked into the rift, or involved in something that you couldn't even dream of happening outside of Scooby Doo or Buffy the Vampire slayer. Expect the unexpected Tosh, because nine times out of ten you can't predict what's going to happen."

"So what do we do?"

"We get back to the hub."

"Okay." Tosh gave up and ran around to the other side, getting in just in time for Owen to drive off.

"We need a plan."

"I can check the rift monitor when we get back to see if there's been any recent spikes in the area. The worst case scenario is that they've slipped through and if that has happened then the monitor program should tell us when."

"Then what?"

"Then I figure it out from there. I can check for Jack's wrist device signal and see what I find."

"That's the best plan you've got?" Owen asked. "You search for his signal?"

"It's the only plan I've got."

"And what's your plan B?"

"I don't have one."


	4. Chapter 4

Ianto rolled over in bed and tucked the sheets under him, slowly opening his eyes to look at the clock. He squinted, sitting up a little to look properly at the carriage clock that stood on the wooden bedside cabinet. His eyes darted around the unfamiliar surroundings of the room. The old cast iron bed squeaked as he moved and the old sash windows rattled in the wind.

A knock on the door echoed through the room and a lady walked inside. She was a beautiful woman, probably in her early twenties, with her long blonde hair tied back in a thick plait.

Tosh tucked her hair behind her ears as she typed commands into the computer, trying to make some kind of sense of the equations; she had been there all night trying to figure them out and the best she could do was hazzard a guess. She heard the large metal door roll open and the alarms snapped her out of his daze. Owen walked in carrying a brown paper bag and two cups of takeaway coffee.

"They only had chocolate doughnuts," he said, setting his coffee down.

"I don't care what it is, as long as I can eat it."

"Urgh!" Owen sniffed the coffee before putting it down without drinking it. "I miss Ianto already."

"I never knew you cared."

"He could make coffee. I **need** coffee, I **miss** coffee." Owen pointed to the container. " **This** is not coffee, it's hot water with colouring."

"I think it's fine."

"Did you manage to calculate the figures yet?" Owen asked, sipping his coffee as he perched on the desk.

"It looks like the rift opened for a period of 2.4 seconds at 01:23 this morning."

"That correlates with the time they dropped out of contact."

"Yes, but it doesn't tell us where they are. They could be anywhere. Without knowing where they are I can't finish the equation I need to do anything."

"Shit." Owen put his pencil between his teeth and rolled his chair over to his own desk, pointing at the screen. "I had a little look through past files this morning to see if anything showed up."

"And?"

"And there's nothing yet."

"Why are you looking through past files exactly?"

Owen concentrated hard on the computer screen, scrolling down the page with the mouse. "Well, if they slipped through the rift and went to Torchwood for help then it should be documented, but there's nothing flagged up so far. Of course if they've gone so far back that Torchwood doesn't exist then we're screwed."

"What if they didn't go **back**?" Tosh asked. "What if they went forward?"

"Then we're screwed then, too."

"Great."

"Any leads on Jack's wrist strap?"

"Nothing. The signal went dead when the rift opened, but I've set up a tracking program incase it comes online."

"So what now?"

"No idea," she admitted.

"Phase two?" Owen suggested. "Doesn't your plan have a phase two?"

"Well the problem with phase two is that Jack usually comes up with phase two."

"So what do we do?"

"Think."

They sat in silence for a moment, looking at the computer screens and then each other. Tosh opened her mouth to speak but then closed it. "Maybe we should call someone."

"Like who?" he asked, "The rift helpline?"

"Torchwood two?"

"No way! I am not going to tell that twat that we lost Jack and two members of our team to the rift."

"Why not?"

"He's smug enough as it is. No, no there has to be another way."

"But-"

"No!" Owen said. "I'm not asking him for help."

"Then I'm fresh out of ideas. There has to be someone else who can help."

Owen stood up in his chair suddenly and grabbed a torch from his drawer. "Suzie!"

"Suzie?" Tosh leapt up and Followed Owen as he ran towards the stairs that lead to the archives.

"Suzie had all this research into the rift, all to do with the weaponry that fell through. If I know her, and I think I did, she's documented every little detail that she knew; she was pedantic like that. The answer could be right here and all we have to do is look for it."

"No offence Owen, but Suzie wasn't exactly a model Torchwood employee; she went on a murdering spree for God's sake."

"But this research was before the glove; it was the glove that changed her."

"It's worth a shot, I suppose."

"Where am I?" Ianto asked.

"Crickhowell, sir."

"Crickhowell?" Ianto sat up in bed a little more and pulled at the sheets again, taking another look around the room. "But that's miles from Cardiff!"

"Your friend, the Captain, he seemed a little confused about that too. It's amazing how far people can travel without even knowing in which direction it is that they're going. Although with a mind like his I'm surprised that he would even notice; quite a man of the world according to my father. He said he seems to be quite the charmer, or so I've been warned."

"Where is he, where's Jack?" Ianto asked, throwing the sheets off and standing up. "I need to talk to him."

"Sir!" the woman turned around to face the window, "Please!"

Ianto looked down at his body and grabbed the sheets hastily, wrapping them around him. He had so far failed to notice the lack of clothing. He blushed. "Where have my clothes gone?"

The woman refused to turn around. "The Captain insisted that he remove all of your clothing to prevent you from getting a chill."

"Did he, now?"

"Could you please get back into bed Mr. Jones, I have no desire to see what you are currently displaying."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise."

"Could you please get back into bed Mr. Jones?"

Ianto did as he was instructed and climbed back into bed, sitting up against the wrought iron headboard. "I'm so sorry."

"Are you decent?" She turned around slowly and looked down to her feet. "You should stay there for a while, you were running a high fever last night."

"I feel fine."

The woman stepped closer to the bed and tucked her skirt underneath her before perching on the edge. She reached her hand towards Ianto's forehead cautiously and touched it for a moment, refusing to look into his eyes. "You do seem to be a little better, but you could still be sick." Ianto removed the woman's hand from his forehead and she pulled it away quickly, standing up and walking over to the large oak wardrobe. "As it doesn't seem that you're the kind of man who does what is in his best interest and rest when he's been advised to do so, I do suppose you should get dressed. You can borrow some of my brother's clothes for now."

"Won't he mind?" Ianto asked.

"No. He's working in London and I doubt we'll see him again until Christmas. He's a little shorter than you, but you have the same kind of build so these should fit you fine." Iris smiled and hugged one of her brothers waistcoats to her chest, leaning back on the wardrobe. "You're built like a farm boy, but something tells me you're not."

"No," Ianto chuckled. "Quite the City boy at heart if I'm honest."

"You have eyes like Patrick," she said. "Quite striking if you don't mind me saying so."

"Patrick is your brother?"

"Yes." Iris smiled and then let it fall from her face. "I have four, but they all work away. I miss Patrick the most; the others are no better than they ought."

"And they don't come home often?"

"It's a long way from London. They come home when they can and send money when they can afford it and we really can't ask any better than that. I'm sure you send money home your family."

"Not really, they don't need it."

"Then they're very lucky Mr. Jones," she said, letting the hint of a smile shine through. "What wouldn't I give to have a family like that?"

"What's your name?" he asked.

"excuse me?" The woman looked him in the eyes, probably for the first time, and questioned him with her gaze.

"I have no idea what to call you."

"Iris Hughes." She looked away from him and turned back to the wardrobe. "And that's **Miss** Hughes to you Mr. Jones, you and your friends seem far too familiar with each other for my liking. It's rather unusual behaviour if you ask me."

"Don't call me Mr. Jones."

"Why not? It is your name isn't it?"

"It makes me sound like my Dad."

"Then what would I call you?"

"Ianto?"

"I couldn't possibly call you that, sir," she said. "I barely know you."

"Mr. Jones makes me feel uncomfortable," he explained. "Please, call me Ianto."

"All right then, Ianto it is." She placed some clothes on the bed. "You can call me Miss Hughes, if my father heard you calling me Iris I think that he would practically explode. He's very old fashioned."

"I could say that you're rather old fashioned yourself."

"You say that not." Iris closed the wardrobe and headed for the door, looking over her shoulder. "You haven't met my father yet."

Jack walked up the stairs and bumped into Iris on the landing as she came out of Ianto's room. It was a lot lighter than the night before and it was easier to see the house more clearly. The décor was old, even for the time and the floorboards seemed to shake as he walked; it was obvious that the old house hadn't been taken care of for quite a while.

"Did you sleep well Captain?" Iris backed away slightly from him. The hallway was far from spacious and she almost found herself backed up against the wall in her efforts to keep her distance. Her back thumped against the wall and she looked up at him, trying to look away from his deep piercing eyes.

"Yes. Are you alright there?"

"Yes, sir. Of course sir. Perpetually splendid sir. Why wouldn't I be Mr. Captain, sir." Iris rambled and shot Jack a stern look when he chuckled a little. She pulled her apron down and crossed her arms over her chest.

"It's Jack."

"No sir, it's **definitely** Captain," she corrected. "I hope the room was a sufficient size for you, there's not room for much more than a bed and in that old room."

"I was fine," Jack said, "cosy and dry. That's really all I needed."

"Father said that you, Mr Jones and your lady friend will stay to help a while."

"Just until we can go home," Jack said. "We all have talents that you could use in return for a roof over our heads for a little while."

"It's nice to have visitors; we rarely see anyone but each other these days."

"It was very nice of your father to take us in."

"Well we couldn't let Mr. Jones lie out in the rain like that and your lady friend was obviously injured. It seems as though you're the only one who managed to stay in one piece."

"Speaking of which, how is he?" Jack gestured to the door. "I was hoping to see him."

"He's awake now and eager to see you."

"He's okay then?"

"He's dressing."

"Good." Jack smiled and twisted the doorknob, pushing the heavy oak door open a little.

"Sir." Iris looked at the Captain as he pushed the door. "He's not decent."

"He hasn't got anything that I haven't seen before, trust me."

Jack knocked on the door once before opening it and walking inside; he closed it behind him and leaned on it, crossing his arms as he watched the younger man dress. A smile spread over his lips at the sight of Ianto and the clothes that he was wearing. The outfit consisted of a loose cotton shirt, unfastened and a pair of brown trousers. He licked his lips as Ianto turned to look at him for a moment before removing his gaze and continued to dress himself.

Ianto Picked up the tweed waistcoat from the bed and slipped it on over his shoulders before starting to fasten his shirt. He could sense Jack watching him and waited for him to speak.

"Not many guys can pull of tweed," Jack said, pushing himself off the door. He wandered slowly over to Ianto and sat down on the bed. "But you make it look very good."

Ianto said nothing, but smiled a little as he tucked in his shirt and fastened up his waistcoat.

"We were worried about you for a while. You woke up and told me that you loved me." he smiled. "But then you asked why the Monkey was eating your cheese and I figured you were just confused."

"I was running a fever," Ianto explained.

"Shame, I got excited."

"Where are we?" Ianto didn't look at him.

"Wales?" Jack suggested.

"What year, Jack?"

Jack sighed in defeat and licked his lips before speaking. "1901."

"What?" Ianto turned around slowly and looked at Jack who stared up at him from his spot on the bed.

"July ninth to be precise."

The younger man slumped down onto the bed beside Jack and let himself fall until he was lying down. He put his hands over his face and mumbled something Jack couldn't quite understand through his hands.

"You know it's not the end of the world," Jack said, moving to lie beside him and removing his hands. Ianto looked up at him for answers. "We won't be here long."

"How are we going to get back?"

"We'll find a way."

"And what if we don't?" Ianto asked. He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees and put his head in his hands. "What then?"

"We will."

"But what if-"

"We will!" Jack said, sitting beside him. "Trust me and quit worrying."

"Trust you?" Ianto looked at Jack directly in the eyes and took a deep breath. "You tell me that we're stuck in rural Wales in 1901 without knowing how, or if we're going to get back and you're telling me to quit worrying and trust you?"

"There's no point. Worrying doesn't solve any problems. I already have Gwen freaking out on me, I need you to trust in me and be calm."

"Why aren't you more worried?" he asked. "Why aren't you **scared**?"

"We got here so there has to be a way to get back somehow." Jack watched Ianto as he walked over to the window and looked out; there was nothing but fields as far as the eye could see. "And I **am** scared."

"What if we can't get back?" Ianto asked slowly. "What if were stuck here with no way home?"

"Well-" Jack sighed and followed Ianto over to the window, putting his hand on his shoulder. "Rural Wales is pretty and you look cute in tweed."

"It's not a joke, Jack." Ianto turned around to face the him.

"I know. But it'll work out and you really do look great in tweed."

Ianto looked at Jack for a moment before cracking a smile so small it was barely there. He took a breath and shoved his hands in his pockets.

"So what's the plan?"

"We'll head out after lunch and have a look around the surrounding area to see if we can find any sign of any of the devices. I've made an arrangement with Mr. Hughes and he said that we can stay here for as long as we need to as long as we help out and earn our keep."

"What did you tell him?"

"Well as luck would have it we do have a legitimate reason to stay," Jack said. "Fortunately for us, if not a little unfortunate for her, Gwen's not-so-little little tumble into 1901 has left her with a particularly swollen and painful ankle."

"Is she alright?"

"Nothing that two days rest won't fix. But I may have embellished the story just a **little** to make it seem as though she might need a bit extra time to recover. So as long as she manages to stretch out her recovery the better it is for us."

"So we lie?" he asked.

"What do you think would work best as a cover story? Jack asked. "We're three people from the future who, not only have travelled through a **rift** in **time** , but are also part of a secret organisation to monitor alien activity on earth. Or, we're three people who happened to be passing through when one of us got inured and now need a place to rest up for a few days?"

"I suppose lying is better than getting thrown into a mental institution."

"Exactly. I'll let you finish getting dressed and meet you downstairs." Jack made his way over to the door and paused before he reached it, turning around. "Oh, and I've been meaning to ask, can you milk a cow?"

"What?" Ianto eyed Jack suspiciously, walking over to him slowly. "Why?

"You know what, don't worry about it," Jack said, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "I'll see you about it later."

"Jack," Ianto drew out his words and edged closer to him. "Why do I need to know how to milk a cow?"

"No reason, I just – I was wondering, that's all. Don't worry about it." Jack disappeared quickly out of the door, leaving Ianto alone in the room alone, and more confused than before.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Tosh tucked her hair behind her ears as she typed commands into the computer, trying to make some kind of sense of the equations; she had been there all night trying to figure them out and the best she could do was hazard a guess. She heard the large metal door roll open and the alarms snapped her out of his daze. Owen walked in carrying a brown paper bag and two cups of takeaway coffee.

"They only had chocolate doughnuts," he said, setting his coffee down.

"I don't care what it is, as long as I can eat it."

"Urgh!" Owen sniffed the coffee before putting it down without drinking it. "I miss Ianto already."

"I never knew you cared."

"He could make coffee. I **need** coffee, I **miss** coffee." Owen pointed to the container. " **This** is not coffee, it's hot water with colouring."

"I think it's fine."

"Did you manage to calculate the figures yet?" Owen asked, sipping his coffee as he perched on the desk.

"It looks like the rift opened for a period of 2.4 seconds at 01:23 this morning."

"That correlates with the time they dropped out of contact."

"Yes, but it doesn't tell us where they are. They could be anywhere. Without knowing where they are I can't finish the equation I need to do anything."

"Shit." Owen put his pencil between his teeth and rolled his chair over to his own desk, pointing at the screen. "I had a little look through past files this morning to see if anything showed up."

"And?"

"And there's nothing yet."

"Why are you looking through past files exactly?"

Owen concentrated hard on the computer screen, scrolling down the page with the mouse. "Well, if they slipped through the rift and went to Torchwood for help then it should be documented, but there's nothing flagged up so far. Of course if they've gone so far back that Torchwood doesn't exist then we're screwed."

"What if they didn't go **back**?" Tosh asked. "What if they went forward?"

"Then we're screwed then, too."

"Great."

"Any leads on Jack's wrist strap?"

"Nothing. The signal went dead when the rift opened, but I've set up a tracking program incase it comes online."

"So what now?"

"No idea," she admitted.

"Phase two?" Owen suggested. "Doesn't your plan have a phase two?"

"Well the problem with phase two is that Jack usually comes up with phase two."

"So what do we do?"

"Think."

They sat in silence for a moment, looking at the computer screens and then each other. Tosh opened her mouth to speak but then closed it. "Maybe we should call someone."

"Like who?" he asked, "The rift helpline?"

"Torchwood two?"

"No way! I am not going to tell that twat that we lost Jack and two members of our team to the rift."

"Why not?"

"He's smug enough as it is. No, no there has to be another way."

"But-"

"No!" Owen said. "I'm not asking him for help."

"Then I'm fresh out of ideas. There has to be someone else who can help."

Owen stood up in his chair suddenly and grabbed a torch from his drawer. "Suzie!"

"Suzie?" Tosh leapt up and Followed Owen as he ran towards the stairs that lead to the archives.

"Suzie had all this research into the rift, all to do with the weaponry that fell through. If I know her, and I think I did, she's documented every little detail that she knew; she was pedantic like that. The answer could be right here and all we have to do is look for it."

"No offence Owen, but Suzie wasn't exactly a model Torchwood employee; she went on a murdering spree for God's sake."

"But this research was before the glove; it was the glove that changed her."

"It's worth a shot, I suppose."


	5. Chapter 5

Jack stopped searching the fields and took a seat on the ground, running his hands through his hair as he watched Ianto work tirelessly. He looked at the younger man as he relentlessly searched every inch of the large paddock, even going so far as delving his hands into the deep mud puddles caused by the recent downpour. He stood up and walked over to him, putting his hand on his back.

"Take a break," he said.

"It has to be here somewhere." Ianto shrugged off Jack's touch and continued to search, wiping his hands on his trousers to clean them. "If we travelled here it must have come with us. All we need is one of the components and it can lead us to the others."

"Just sit down for a moment." Jack tried to persuade him, but Ianto refused to stop, and continued searching every area he could. "Please."

Ianto stood up and turned around to face Jack, following him over to the only dry patch of land underneath the large draping oak tree. He sat down, leaving a space between them and tucked his knees into his chest. He stared at the ground for a moment, actively searching without making it too obvious.

"Did Iris show you the room?" Jack asked.

"Yes. If you recall I spent a good few hours there concussed and mad at the monkey who stole my cheese" Ianto didn't remove his gaze from the ground.

"It's very nice of Mr. Hughes to put us up somewhere so nice, I was half expecting to sleeping in the barn."

'where did you sleep last night?"

"Up in the attic, I didn't want to disturb you."

"So, why can't you stay there?"

"It's freezing up there and there's a hole in the roof above the bed."

"Where's Gwen going to sleep?"

"With Iris." Jack turned to look at Ianto and edged a little closer to him. "You don't mind sharing a bed with me do you? Because I can sleep on the floor, or we can top to tail."

"Why would I mind?"

"Maybe my animal magnetism is too much for you."

"I'll restrain myself somehow," Ianto said dryly, taking little notice of the conversation.

"Ianto-" Jack closed the gap between them and nudged him with his elbow. "What's wrong?"

Ianto looked over at Jack and then shook his head, refocusing his gaze to his feet. "You really need to ask that?"

"We'll get back."

"You keep saying that," Ianto said. "I'm starting to doubt how much you believe it yourself."

"It's early days yet, we've got a lot more ground to search. If it's not here it'll be with Tosh and Owen by now."

The silence drifted a wedge between them again and Ianto looked up into the sky; the dark clouds from earlier in the day had long gone and only blue sky remained. The sun was starting to dry the wet ground and in some places, in the shade under the large oak tree, the dirt was so hard it was cracking. Ianto bent down and plucked a daisy from the grass and twirled it between his thumb and forefinger, stopping for a moment to pick off the thin white petals one by one. He took a deep breath.

"I used to love the country when I was a kid."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. My dad would take me and my sister out. We'd go camping and do all the clichè stuff like cook fish on a stick and wash in streams and stuff."

"Sounds fun."

"I hated it." Ianto laughed a little. "We got all muddy and my sister moaned all the time, then he shouted at us. But after tea we'd make up and it would all be right again, just for him to start shouting again in the morning. "

"Typical family holiday."

"He was a very calm man usually, but there was something about being out in the country that changed him into someone I didn't want to be around."

"It's the quietness," Jack said. "It affects us all in totally different ways."

"Being here just reminds me so much of things I'd rather forget."

"When we get back-"

"If we get back," Ianto corrected.

"No, when we get back." The older man sat up and put his hand on Ianto's shoulder. "Relax and enjoy the beauty for a few days, you'll miss it when you're back in Cardiff with a mountain of paperwork and Owen nagging you for coffee every two minutes."

"You could stay here forever and nobody would even notice you were gone and you think I'm the same. Just because I spend every waking minute with you it doesn't mean I have nobody to get back to." Ianto's voice came across bitter and his eyes seemed dark with frustration. Jack moved away from him, starting to stand up and Ianto sighed, looking up at him. He grabbed his hand. "I didn't mean that."

"Yes you did."

"No, I didn't." The younger man placed his other hand over Jack's wrist, feeling the pulse through his fingertips. "I'm just scared. I want to blame you and it's wrong for me to do that."

"You're right though." Jack turned around to face him and sat back down, putting his hand over the younger man's. "I'm not exactly missed back home."

"If you weren't here I would miss you," Ianto said. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"Flattery will get you everywhere." Jack smiled and Ianto looked at him for a moment, smiling back faintly. "No, really, it will."

"I don't even want to think about where my flattery could get me. Knowing you I would end up naked and tied to a bedpost being tickled by an Ostrich feather."

"Ostrich feather?" Jack asked, arching an eyebrow at Ianto who looked at him. "Kinky."

"You know what I mean."

"Yes, you have a kinky streak."

"I do not have a kinky streak."

"You want to be stripped naked, tied up and tickled with an Ostrich feather; that's the definition of kinky in my book."

"I have no interest in doing anything remotely kinky with you Jack, so you can rid your mind of any ideas that I am in any way interested."

"You're already holding my hand," he said looking down at their hands. Ianto's fingers were still laced between Jack's.

"I know." The younger man looked down and made no attempt to move.

"It's 1901," he said. "It's very much frowned upon."

"I'll stop then." Ianto started to move his hand away and Jack stopped him, placing his other hand on top.

"I didn't say that I frowned upon it."

"I doubt that Mr. Hughes would find it acceptable for two men to be holding hands in his field Jack," Ianto said, looking at jack who lifted their hands to his lips and kissed Ianto's fingers. "Or indeed doing that."

"I'm not doing anything."

"I think we should probably start searching again before-"

"Before what?" Jack asked.

"Before we-" Ianto swallowed a lump in his throat and tried to control his rapidly increasing heart rate as Jack looked at him. He could feel the heat of the Older man's eyes burn through him and looked away, removing his hand. "Before it gets dark."

"It's half past two in the afternoon."

"There's a lot of field left to search."

Ianto stood up and walked away to where he had ceased searching earlier and Jack followed, pressing up against his back. Ianto stood still, feeling almost paralytic, somehow unable to move away from the warmth of him. The Captain let his lips brush the younger man's ear and trailed his fingers lightly over his skin.

"You shouldn't care so much what other people think."

"I don't," Ianto breathed, looking down at the fingers that ran over the buttons on his waistcoat, unfastening it slowly. "What are you doing?"

"It's hot; you must be warm in all those layers."

"I'm fine."

"You're not." Jack touched Ianto's neck with his lips, pressing a kiss into his skin. "You're burning up."

"Do I even need to point out to you that this is far beyond acceptable levels of sexual harassment?"

"Do you see an office?" Jack asked. "I see no office."

"I-" Ianto opened his mouth to speak and looked around, feeling Jack's hand slide up his chest, between his open waistcoat, and onto his neck, unfastening his top button. "Well no but-"

"Besides, it's only sexual harassment if you don't enjoy it. I looked it up."

"And how do you know that I enjoy it?"

"If you didn't then you would have moved by now," he whispered. "And you certainly wouldn't be as hard as you are."

Ianto turned around and looked Jack in the eyes. "This is not the time to try and seduce me."

"And you're saying that there will be a time?" Jack asked. "Because you look great in tweed and we're sharing a bed tonight."

"Try anything and you're on the floor."

"And you said you weren't kinky," he teased.

"I mean it," Ianto warned, his eyes dark. "Just stop 


	6. Chapter 6

Ianto made his way across the living room and headed towards the window, slmping down in a hard wooden chair. The windows were ancient and chipped at the edges, the old white paint was faded and the glass rattled in the gentle wind. The view was dark and without the city lights he was used to Ianto could see nothing other than the courtyard, his eyes focussed on Spike, the slightly chubby ginger cat that cleaned himself in the centre of the yard.

Jack caught his eye as he passed by, shoving his hands into his pockets as he braved the cold weather; he stopped for a moment and locked his eyes on the younger man, gazing at him so intensely that he was forced to look away. Jack had looked at him that way throughout dinner, glancing up from him when he ate and piercing his eyes into his soul over the rim of his glass Every look seemed to be directed at him and by the end of dinner he found himself sitting there, opposite the older man, hard as a rock and trying to hide it.

Ianto was dreading going to bed. He didn't want to lie there beside him, watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest, or the beautifully sculptured arc of his back as it clung to the sheets in the heat of the night. For a moment the thought of him made him consider following him into the barn, but he didn't see how pressing him up against the back of the barn, spreading him like butter and fucking him senseless would really help to solve any of their problems.

"Hi." Gwen's voice snapped him out of his thoughts and he looked over the room as she hobbled over to see him. "I've not seen you all day."

"We've been out searching for the device."

Gwen smiled at him and sat down on the arm of the chair, putting her hand on his shoulder to steady herself. He looked hot and flushed, even though the weather was cold; his waistcoat was fully open and only three of his shirt buttons were fastened, just covering his chest. He had even removed his socks and his hair looked like he had been dragged through a bush backwards.

"You're stressed," she said. "I can tell."

"How?"

"You're a mess. You're only a mess when you're stressed."

Ianto let a hint of a smile cross his lips. "I'm fine."

"Yeah, you look it." Gwen chuckled and put her arm around him, dragging his resistant body over to her for comfort.

"How are you holding up?"

"Wonderful," she droned sarcastically. "I really enjoy feeling like a damsel in bloody distress."

"What?"

"She told me I look like a man in my clothes and said that tomorrow I can borrow one of her dresses."

"A dress?" Ianto laughed a little. "You'll look nice in a dress."

"Please just tell me you found it so that I can go home."

"No sign yet."

"Maybe you'll find it tomorrow."

"Maybe." Ianto looked back out of the window and squinted to look at Jack as he disappeared into the barn. "I don't fancy our chances, though."

"Don't say that. You're meant to tell me that it's just a matter of time and that we will be home before we know it."

"Sorry." He gave Gwen an apologetic look. "It's just a matter of time and we'll be home before we know it."

"What happened today?" she asked. "You and Jack went out and when you got back you looked like a bulldog chewing a wasp and Jack won't stop glaring. I saw you two at dinner, it looked like some kind of staring contest over the mashed potato."

"We had words," he explained. "Things were said."

"You had a fight?"

"It's complicated."

"Do you want to-"

"I don't want to talk about it." Ianto said, moving away from Gwen and returning to staring out of the window. "That won't help anything."

A silence fell between them for a while as they both looked out of the window at the foreign world that they had found themselves in. For a moment they could almost trick themselves into believing that they were on a break at a rural getaway, but it was no use lying and the reality of the situation hit them again. The clock struck eleven and Ianto raised his eyes to the face of the clock on the mantle.

Gwen pushed herself up from the chair arm and attempted to stand up. "I think I'm going to head off to bed."

"Can you manage?" he asked, standing up to help her steady herself.

"I'm fine, but a little help wouldn't go amiss."

Ianto put one arm around her waist and let her lean on him as she limped in the direction of the stairs. When she got to the bottom she looked up at all the steps and took a deep breath.

"Somehow I think that going up is going to be a lot more work than coming down." She chuckled. "Care to offer me a piggyback like a gentleman?"

"Sure."

"I was joking!" Gwen chuckled, starting to make her way up the first step.

* * *

"Did you and Mr. Jones enjoy your constitutional this afternoon Captain?" Mr Hughes walked up to Jack who stood in the barn stroking the nose of the same horse that had tried to eat him the evening before.

"Fine thank you."

"Did you go far?"

"Not too far. Far enough to enjoy the view, but not too far to get lost."

"You could never get lost out here," he said. You would reach the village eventually and they're very friendly around here."

"No thanks. I'm a little wary of villagers of late. Bad experiences."

"You wouldn't have any bad experiences here Captain, trust me."

"I believe you."

"Maybe tomorrow you could take Snow out for a while," Mr. Hughes suggested, running his hand along the side of the horse. "You seem to have taken a shining to him and he hasn't had nearly enough exercise recently."

"He's a beautiful stallion," Jack said. "Gorgeous coat, but I'm not much of a rider."

"We used to have more but we had to sell them on, I couldn't afford to keep them all."

"But not this one?"

"Iris would have me shot," he chuckled. "She loves this horse. Sometimes I swear she loves it almost as much as I love her."

"I doubt that."

"My daughter is a very beautiful girl, Captain. Don't you agree?"

"Absolutely. She's quite the beauty."

"She's just like her namesake to me: precious, beautiful and innocent."

"And you want to make sure that she remains that way."

"Yes."

"I can assure you that neither Ianto, nor myself, will even attempt to lead her astray. We won't be here long enough for that and even if we were we wouldn't even dream of it."

"I trust my daughter Capitan, she's a very smart girl, but she's very impressionable and has taken a liking to all of you."

"Say no more," Jack said. "We understand each other completely. Consider me warned off."

"You should go to bed and get some sleep. That fence in the far paddock needs fixing and you'll need to start straight after breakfast."

* * *

Ianto carried Gwen through the bedroom door and sat her down on the bed. She had started to climb the stairs on her own but halfway up Ianto had taken pity on her and carried her the rest of the way.

"Thanks Ianto," Gwen said, removing her shoes and he perched on the bed beside her. "You're a real gent, you'll fit into this time really well.

"No problem. Although don't think that you're getting this kind of treatment every night; this was a one time deal."

"I should be better in a few days."

"You can't start walking properly until we find the devices," Ianto reminded her. "We can only stay here as long as you're injured."

"How long do you think I'll have to do this for? There's only so long that you can milk a sprained ankle."

"Until we find it."

"And what if we don't?" she asked, looking over at Ianto. "What if, just for arguments sake, we don't find it and the others can't bring us back. What then?"

"I suppose we're stuck here. There's nothing else we can do but build a life and get on with it."

"That's easy enough for you to say," Gwen said, standing up and hobbling over to the mirror. She put her hand on her face and touched her skin. "You're the right sex."

"What do you mean?"

"All that I have heard all day is Jack and Mr. Hughes speak about me like don't have my own bloody mind. It's easy for you."

"How?"

" You can go out, find a girl, fall in love and have a life together. I'm nothing but a bloody ornament here, I may as well not have a brain or thoughts of my own. I can't even vote for God's sake."

Ianto walked over and leant on the wall, looking at her as she watched herself in the mirror. "You have Jack and you have me; we'll look after you."

"That's exactly the point Ianto. I can look after myself."

"It's a different world."

"I'm fully aware of that thank you," Gwen spat and then sighed, looking up at him. "I'm sorry, Ianto."

"It'll be fine. I promise that whatever happens I'll be here and I'll look after you even if it means that I let you think that it's actually the other way around."

"And how exactly do you plan to do that?" She asked, closing the gap between them a little, "Marry me?"

"I could."

"You don't love me, Ianto." She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging him tight . "It's very sweet though."

"Maybe I could learn," he said. "Maybe we could even be happy in time."

"You can't learn to love someone Ianto." Gwen looked up at him. "Why would you even suggest it?"

"I don't want you to end up with some chauvinist pig, and considering it's 1901 it's more than likely that it'll happen."

"Then I'll be alone and I'll be fine."

"I wouldn't."

"You have Jack."

"Jack isn't going to stick around, he's going to go off somewhere and find something exciting to do. I would much rather be with you than be alone. it's a lot less scary than the other options."

"As true as that is, you can't live a life with someone you don't love Ianto."

"Maybe I could," he said. "I could try."

"You could never do that."

"Why not?"

"I know you. Your heart is too full with feelings for someone else to ever think about loving me."

"Lisa is dead."

"I'm not talking about Lisa."

Gwen locked her eyes onto Ianto's gaze; it took him a moment of firm starring to get what she was trying to say.

"Gwen-"

"You're just scared because in this world what you want is seen so differently. "

"It's nothing!" he said, pushing Gwen away to arms length. "It's casual flirtation, it means nothing."

"I've seen the way you look at him and the way he looks at you."

"You don't know anything."

"I know that your mind is so full of him that you couldn't possibly think of anyone else."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is." She closed the gap between them again and put her hands on Ianto's cheeks. "I love Rhys and you love Jack.

"If I was with you I would be far too busy with you to think of anyone else, even Jack."

"That's a lie."

"It's not."

Gwen pulled Ianto's face down and pressed her lips against his, she felt her body move as he put his hands on her waist, pulling her close.

"Am I interrupting?" Jack's voice came from the doorway. "Do you two want some time alone?"

Gwen felt like she had frozen to the spot and Ianto removed his hands, looking at the older man who stood in the doorway.

"Shit." Ianto pushed Gwen away from his body and walked towards Jack. "This is not-"

"It's not what?" he asked, stepping into the room and shutting the door, looking at him with a glare so cold it hurt. "It's not what it looks like? It's not what I think?"

"It really isn't," Gwen said. "Ianto and I were just-"

"Just what?" he challenged, watching Ianto who stood in silence whilst Gwen dropped down on the bed.

"It was just a kiss," Ianto said, moving towards him as he backed away.

"You should have said, you two could have had the double bed."

"Jack-"

"That way you could lock the door and fuck each others brains out." Jack opened the door again and walked out, closing it behind him.

"Jack-" The sound of Ianto's voice was drowned out by the slamming of the door.

He stared at the door for a while after he left as though he expected Jack to come back and covered his lips with his fingers.

"You were thinking of him."

"Why does it matter? He turned around to face her but refused to meet her gaze.

"I knew you would."

"You've ruined everything."

"Ianto-"

"Why did you do that?"

'I Just thought-"

"Well don't bloody think!"

Ianto walked out the door, slamming it it behind him. He walked down the hallway and stood outside the bedroom door and stared at it. He put his hand on the doorknob for a moment before removing it; he didn't know whether he could face him.

* * *

It took Ianto a full hour before he had the strength to walk into the bedroom to face Jack.

After spending ten minutes with his hand on the doorknob and no nerve to go inside, he had gone for a walk in his bare feet across the darkened courtyard; it had proved to be a bad idea. Spike, the not-so-friendly family cat, had allowed him to sit on the ground stroking him for a while before scratching his hand, hissing and darting off towards the barn. Not that Ianto blamed him, he wasn't really paying much attention to the podgy moggy and stroked it's coat aimlessly as he stared up at the bedroom window. Spike simply got sick of playing second fiddle to a window, and left.

So, a while later, with his feet blackened, his skin cold and his hand covered in deep red scratches he returned to the house, climbed the stairs and looked at the large oak door once more. He took a deep breath and finally made the decision to go inside, closing the door quietly. He could see Jack lying in bed, the thin sheet draped over the his shirtless torso, his eyes closed, his breathing calm.

"Jack?" He walked over to the other side of the bed and crouched down, looking at him as he slept. "Jack are you sleeping?" he asked.

When he got no reply, Ianto put his hand on Jack's face and swept his hair away from his eyes, looking at him for a while. He looked peaceful and so much calmer than he had earlier in the evening. He let his hand drift down to Jack's lips, allowing his fingertips brush against the soft skin. Ianto dropped down to his knees and moved his lips closer to Jack as he slept, planting a soft kiss on his lips.

Leaning back on his blackened heels, Ianto let his hand slowly fall from the Jack's face. He watched him for a moment, praying that he wouldn't wake, and sighed a little. He considered waking him just to say his piece, to tell him what he had been rehearsing for the past hour in his mind, but thought better of it; some things were better left unsaid.

Quietly, he stood up and walked over to his side of the bed and removing everything but his underwear. He draped the clothing over the chair and pulled back the sheet, preparing to climb into bed without waking him.

"It's late," Jack whispered without moving. "Where did you go?"


	7. Chapter 7

It was late and the bedroom was quiet. Ianto stayed still, his head dropped against his chest, trying to ignore the question that hung in the air between them.

"I asked you where you went." Jack's words were quiet. "You were gone over an hour."

"For a walk."

"Long walk."

"I needed it. I had to clear my head."

"Did you manage it?" he asked, finally sitting on the edge. Jack watched him from across the darkness, the taste of his kiss still on his lips.

"No."

"Why?"

"There's too much going on in there," he admitted quietly. "Too many thoughts."

"Why didn't you tell me about you and Gwen?" Jack asked, pushing himself off the bed to walk towards him. He could barely see Ianto in the dark, all he could make out was a figure standing in the room. "Is it just comfort, or is there more to it than that? Was she there for you when I wasn't?"

"There's nothing to tell."

"You kissed her," Jack said, his voice cracking. "You were in her room and you were kissing her. It seems to me that there's definitely something to tell."

"She kissed me." Ianto could hear Jack laugh harshly from across the room, but he seemed to be getting closer. "I didn't initiate it."

"You certainly didn't seem to fight it. I would say it even looked like you were enjoying it."

"I don't feel anything for her, it's not like that."

"That's real funny," Jack said, his voice getting closer until Ianto could finally see him, just feet away. "Because generally I only shove my tongue down someone's throat when I feel something for them. Even if that feeling is lust."

"She was scared, I was scared. My mind was on other things and I wasn't even thinking about her." He explained.

"Then what were you thinking about?"

"I don't-" Ianto stuttered and licked his lips, but tried to sound confident. "I can't remember."

Jack closed the gap between them until their bodies were touching. "Were you thinking about me?"

The heat of Jack's breath hit Ianto's neck as he leaned in to speak into his ear. It wasn't until Jack touched his face softly, running his fingertips across his lips, that Ianto realised he had closed his eyes the moment they had touched.

"When you were kissing her, did you wish it was me?"

"Jack-"

"Did you think about me, about my fingers on your skin, or my breath on your neck?" Before Ianto could reply, Jack put his hands on the younger man's stomach and pushed him gently until he felt his back pressing against the wall. "Tell me that you were thinking about me."

"No." His tone was stern, but his voice shook and broke at the Jack's touch.

"You kissed me. You thought that I was sleeping and you kissed me." His lips brushed against the younger man's ear and he felt his breathing quicken in pace. "I felt it."

"You're mistaken."

"You kissed me."

"You don't always need a reason to kiss someone Jack, haven't you ever kissed someone without thinking?"

"No. When I kiss someone I know exactly what I'm doing."

"You can kiss someone and not feel anything," Ianto said. He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat and felt the heat of Jack's body as he held him firmly against the wall. He could feel Jack's erection pressing into him as he pulled Ianto's hips towards him.

"Can you feel that?" He whispered.

"I could hardly miss it, you're pressing into my thigh."

Jack reached his hand towards the door and turned the key on the lock; the sound echoed through the room as it clicked into place.

"You say that you kissed her and felt nothing?" Jack asked. "Do you think that you could kiss me and feel nothing, too?"

"Do you want me to?" He looked at Jack in the darkness, close enough to see the heat in his eyes.

"That wasn't the question."

"Do you really want that, Jack?" Ianto asked. "Do you really want us to go down that road where we have to talk about how we feel?"

"I'd rather talk about you and Gwen."

"Why do you even care?"

"I just do."

"I wasn't aware that it had anything to do with you who I kiss, or how I feel when I'm kissing them."

Jack fell silent.

"You're just mad because she got to play with a toy that you wanted," he said. "You want me and you can't bear that I don't want you, too."

"But you do want me." Jack looked directly into Ianto's eyes; he could barely see but he could feel the cold glare. "Every time I touch you I get a reaction."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is." He ran his hand between Ianto's legs and rubbed him through his underwear. "A big reaction."

"And I didn't think you could get any more arrogant."

"Kiss me."

"What?"

"Please." Jack's voice softened. "Kiss me."

Ianto opened his mouth to protest and looked into the older man's eyes, finding himself unable to say anything. The gaze that pierced into his eyes was deep and pleading; heavy and burning with something undefined. He swallowed a lump in his throat and licked his lips to stop them from drying.

"Why ask me now?" Ianto said, putting his hands on the older man's face. "Why here, in a place where it would make everything so much more difficult for us?"

"Haven't you ever wanted something that you were afraid to ask for?" Jack whispered. "I can't just walk away without asking this time. I've walked away too many times."

"I don't feel anything for you." Ianto said, his voice harshly cracking.

"Prove it," Jack challenged. "Make it mean nothing."

Ianto looked at Jack's lips, swollen and begging, slightly parted and close enough to taste. He could feel the heat of his breath on his lips, a sweetness seemed to radiate from them and draw him closer. The sight of the older man's tongue protruding out from between his lips, moistening them made Ianto lose composure, and with more eagerness than he expected he captured Jack's lips in a kiss.

Jack's lips were even softer than they looked, and tasted sweeter than he had imagined; his tongue darted into his mouth with a soft desperation and his hands spread over his body, creating a trail of heat over his skin. Ianto wrapped his fingers around the back of Jack's neck, pulling his lips towards him, deepening the kiss with an urgency he didn't know he possessed. The younger man nipped at Jack's lips and sucked on his tongue as his hands roamed his shirtless body; fingerprints burning into flesh.

Ianto pulled away for no other reason than a need for oxygen, and rested his forehead against Jack's. The older man looked at him, his mouth was open and gasping, his chest rising and falling trying to claim some air. His hands circled Ianto's neck gently, pulling him towards him for another kiss.

At first Ianto tried to pull away, but the heaviness of Jack against him and the heat of his fingers forced his body to give in long before he intended. He wrapped his arms around him and pulled him in, letting his hands roam until they reached the soft material of his underwear. Ianto found himself pulling their hips closer, pressing his erection shamelessly into him. He felt as though he had been drugged by the heat of Jack's lips, or the feel of his body weighing him down; he didn't want to respond, but he kissed him back with every scrap of energy that he had. Jack groaned, and nipped at the younger man's lips as he kissed him hungrily.

Ianto gasped, opening his mouth in shock when he felt the Jack's hand wrap around his cock through the material of his boxers.

"Jack-"

Jack silenced his words with a kiss, waiting for him to surrender, then used his spare hand to cover his mouth. He kissed his Jaw, sucking in the rough skin and dragging his tongue along it.

"Don't make a sound." Jack whispered a order at him, nipping at the younger man's earlobe for a moment. Slowly, he removed his hand from Ianto's mouth and let it fall to his neck, pushing him back gently against the cold wall.

Ianto craned his neck to the side as Jack sucked on his skin and buried his fingers in his hair, pulling him closer for a moment before dragging the older man's lips back to his own, devouring them desperately. He heard Jack moan painfully as he tugged at his hair forcefully, then felt himself being pushed back by his neck against the wall, struggling for control of the kiss.

Ianto yanked Jack's head to the side again and kissed his neck, sucking the skin hard enough to leave a mark. He could feel the Captain losing composure; he seemed to melt into his body, letting his head fall to the Welshman's shoulder and bite the skin softly. His hand wrapped around the back of Ianto's neck and he drew him in, planting kisses on the soft skin under his jaw. Ianto let his grip loosen from Jack's hair and it moved to his back, running his fingers over his shoulder blades as he nipped the skin on his neck.

Reality and logic tried to kick in when Jack's hands ran down Ianto's sides, but something pushed them to the side and replaced them with a burning passion that showed itself in the form of hungry kisses. He didn't feel Jack's hands as they yanked down his shorts, but pulled back sharply when he felt Jack's hand wrap around his cock, free from the confines of the material.

He looked down; his underwear hung loose at his ankles and his cock was shamelessly erect in Jack's hand. His vision returned to the older man and he froze at the sight of the beautiful blue eyes that pierced through his gaze. He swallowed hard and blinked a few times before feeling his breath catch in his chest. Jack started to stroke him slowly, never removing his intense gaze; Ianto couldn't look away.

Ianto tried to gain some composure and look un-phased by Jack's touch, but his body betrayed him; a groan escaped his mouth as Jack quickened the pace and his hips started to move with the strokes of his hand. Ianto could sense the smallest hint of a smile tugging at Jack's lips as he watched him slowly surrender; he was enjoying making him squirm, it was turning him on.

His body seemed to resign to the touch and his head dropped back against the wall, exposing the length of his neck. Jack clasped his free hand over Ianto's open mouth to mask his groans and leaned into his ear.

"It's been a while," he whispered, brushing his thumb over the head of his cock. Ianto moaned under the hand that covered his mouth. "Hasn't it?"

Ianto nodded slowly, pressing the palms of his hands against the wall to steady himself.

"Be quiet," he said softly, removing his hand from Ianto's mouth. "We don't want any interruptions."

Jack dropped to his knees in front of the younger man, looking up at him as he continued to stroke him . His eyes stayed focussed on Ianto as he kissed his thigh, running his tongue over the skin, tasting him and teasing him at the same time

Ianto's fingers spread flat out on the wall and held back his gasp when Jack's hot tongue landed on his cock, slowly flicking over the head before licking the shaft. He guided the length into his mouth, and sealed his lips around it, surrounding it in warmth. Putting one hand on Ianto's hip, Jack pulled him forward and took as much length as he could

Slowly, he opened his eyes and looked down at Jack, watching him as he sucked and licked him. He buried his hands in the the older man's hair, pushing him down onto his cock a little; Jack glanced up and locked his eyes onto Ianto's as he flicked the head with his tongue.

"Jack." Ianto gasped squeezing his eyes shut again. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, biting his lip to stop him from moaning. "Jack stop. Please.".

Jack looked up at him, and removed his mouth for a moment, continuing to stroke him. "That doesn't feel good?"

"Too good." Ianto moaned softly and started to pant, letting his head drop to the side."Really Jack, you really do need to stop now."

The older man ignored him and flicked his tongue over the head again, licking the underside of his cock until he could hear Ianto's breath catch and feel his body tense.

Ianto gasped and twisted his fingers in Jack's hair as he felt his body betray him and give in; the soft gasps escaped from his mouth and he found his chest rising and falling heavily. He felt his knees buckle, and held on to Jack's shoulders just to keep standing. His blood rushed through his veins and it felt as though his heart was going to beat out of his chest. He bucked his hips forward, thrusting his cock further into Jack's mouth and finally, after what seemed forever, the release came, emptying himself into Jack's hot waiting mouth. Jack swallowed every drop that was offered and looked up at Ianto, locking his eyes on the heavy gaze that watched him from above. He couldn't decide whether he was aroused, angry, or both. He licked his lips and rose to his feet, touching Ianto's face with his hands. He kissed Ianto's jaw softly and hovered his lips above his ear.

"You taste sweeter than I thought you would," he whispered. "And I thought about it so many times."

Ianto closed his eyes, basking in the sensation of hot breath in his ear; he leaned into Jack, running his hands up his back. He felt the soft sculpted muscle and caressed the skin with his fingertips, casting a map of his body in his memory; an unforgetting touch.

Jack kissed his cheek, just beside his ear and smoothed the skin with his thumbs. "Sometimes you're all I can think about. I undress you with my eyes, burning away all those layers in my mind. Now that the vision of you is in my memory, I'm hooked; I'll never stop thinking about you."

He pulled away slightly, holding the Welshman's head in his hands. Ianto looked at him and licked his lips, unable to tear his eyes away from the older man who seemed to be piercing his eyes with his gaze.

"I don't care," Ianto said, so weakly that even he knew it wasn't true. "I don't want it."

"You don't want to," Jack whispered, his breath tickling Ianto's lips as he spoke. "But you do and that's okay."

Before Ianto could speak again Jack stopped him, covering his mouth with his lips. He kissed him, drawing him closer with his hand on his neck.

Ianto could still taste himself in Jack's mouth, and feel the heat of his lips on his skin. He ran his hands down jack's back and pulled at the waistband of his boxers, yanking them down. He pushed him towards the bed a little more roughly than he wanted, hungrily nipping at Jack's lips and taking his tongue into his mouth.

Jack pulled away from his lips, gasping for air, but found a strong hand on his neck pulling him back into another intense kiss. Ianto's hands caressed his skin, touching everywhere that he could, reaching his hand around to Jack's cock. He started to stroke his length and Jack found himself moan into his mouth, gripping onto his shoulders. He let Ianto manoeuvre him onto the bed and pin his hands at his side

"Do you want this Jack?" he breathed, lowering his mouth to his ear.

"Please."

"Say it again." Ianto was sure that Jack had just used that word, but he needed to hear it again. "Beg for it."

"Please."

"Would you enjoy that Jack?" Ianto asked, pressing down on his wrists until the skin turned white.

"Oh yeah."

"Immagine it, burn it into your memory because it will never happen."

Jack tried to move, but Ianto thrust his hands back onto the bed, pressing a loving kiss against his lips.

"Ianto-"

"It can't happen."

Jack tried to speak, but Ianto beat him to it.

"You mean nothing to me." he spoke, holding Jack down against the bed. "I can't let you."

Finally, Ianto let go and moved away, putting his trousers back on and slipping his shirt over his arms. He headed for the door and reached for the handle.

"Don't go," Jack pleaded, putting his hand over the Welshman's fingers.. He rested his forehead against Ianto's back and wrapped his arm around him, holding his hand against his chest. He kissed his back softly. "Please don't leave like this."

"I can't stay here tonight Jack, I'm sorry."

"And where exactly are you going to go?" Jack asked, his voice breaking.

"For a another walk."

"Are you coming back?"

"I don't have a choice, do i?"

"Then stay," Jack requested, feeling Ianto's hand as it wrapped around the arm that held him, caressing the skin. "Come to bed."

"No," Ianto said weakly, his voice shaking. "I can't just go to bed with you lying beside me. I can't pretend that everything is okay."

"But it is going to be okay," Jack whispered. "I promise you that everything will be okay."

"I don't see how it can be."

"We'll make it."

"There's some things even you can't fix." Ianto shrugged Jack away and opened the door, turning around when he felt him follow. he put his hand on Jack's cheek, pressing a kiss against his lips. "Please don't follow me."


	8. Chapter 8

"Tosh!" Owen called her name, shaking her shoulder to drag her away from sleep.. "Tosh, wakey, wakey, rise and shine."

"Hmm?" She lifted her head from the desk. "Did I fall asleep."

"About twenty minutes ago," he said, peeling the yellow post it note from her cheek. "You're starting to dribble on the keyboard."

"Sorry."

" I made you some tea. I tried coffee but ianto's Machine looks more like something we dredged out of the bay."

"Thanks." Tosh smiled and took a drink. "What time is it?"

"One o'clock," he said. "We're burning the night oil until it runs out."

"Did you find anything in Suzie's files?"

"Not yet, What about Jack's signal?"

"Nothing yet. I've set some systems up to check every frequency in case it's operating on another level."

"Alright." Owen picked a pile of files up and put them on her desk, then split them in two. "These are the rest of Suzie's files - we'll each take half home, look them over, sleep a bit and meet back here tomorrow."

"I'd rather just stay here."

"You need a break from this place." Owen picked up her jacket and handed it to her. "I'll take you home."

"I don't really want to be on my own, at least here I have myfanwy for company."

"Then you're coming home with me." Taking her hand, Owen pulled her to her feet, pressing a few buttons to shut down the computer system. "We'll have a drink, look over these files and get our heads down for a few."

"You don't have to."

"Well I can't stand to stay a minute longer in this place and you don't want to be on your own, so you're coming with me."

"Maybe it will be better to have a change of scenery." Tosh started to pack some things into her bag, then followed Owen into the lift.

"If you play your cards right I might even make you breakfast."

* * *

Owen knocked back the remainder of whiskey in his glass; it was far too early to be drinking, well past three in the morning, but the warmth of the alcohol was the only thing keeping him awake. He looked over towards Tosh who sat beside him on his couch, her legs tucked underneath herself as she read through another file.

"What do you think they're doing right now?" He asked. "Do you think they're trying to get back, or just waiting for us to make a breakthrough?"

"Who knows." Tosh yawned, stretching out like a cat. "The universe is a crazy thing, they could. Be anywhere doing anything. What if they're not even alive?"

"They are." Owen touched her hand reassuringly.

"We could do this forever and find nothing that will help." She threw the file back on the coffee table, then picked up another.

"We'll get them back. Until then it's just you and me and if we don't kill each other, we'll figure it out."

"You're being nice to me." Tosh smiled. "You haven't been nice to me in a long time"

"What do you mean,? I'm always nice."

"No you're not. In fact sometimes, you can be quite cruel."

"What?" Owen looked genuinely shocked, putting the file down beside him to look at her. "When have I been cruel?"

"Some of the things you say-"

"I'm joking! I thought you could take it, y'know banter and all that?"

"When I had that pendant, I heard what you think of me, what Gwen thinks of me and it was awful." Tosh sighed, concentrating her eyes back to the file, scanning the information before turning a page over. "Just sitting there, listening to people think horrible things about you."

"Like you never think horrible things about me once in a while?"

"It's just hard sometimes. Right now I don't need an alien pendant to know who you would rather be stuck here with."

"What?" Owen closed his eyes and shook his head' his brow knitting together out of confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Gwen. I know you would rather it was her here."

"That's bollocks!."

"Is it?"

"I'm glad it's you I'm here with, because I know that we have the best chance of fixing it with you here. What Gwen going to do? Emotionally blackmail the rift into spitting them back out?"

"She always seems to be better at me at everything."

"Well, she's not." Owen stood up, climbing over Toshiko's legs to get out of the couch. "I'm going for a shower, when you're finished sprouting complete bollocks you can take my bed. Maybe when you wake up you'll speak more sense."

* * *

Ianto groaned and opened his eyes. Whatever it was that had awoken him had done so by sitting on his chest, and it was heavy, too heavy to ignore anyway. A loud meowing reverberated around the stone walls of the building and he finally sat up, looking down at Spike who meowed again and sat on the scratchy hay looking expectant.

He looked around and squinted, the sunlight broke through the door, creating a single beam of blinding light in the dark room. The building was freezing cold, and made completely of stone, with large wooden doors and a high roof that made every sound echo. It was empty, save for a scattering of old hay and a few empty wooden crates.

He reached down and put his hand on Spike's head, stroking the fur behind his ears, making him purr; the cat lay down on the floor and stretched out lazily. His claws spread out and he closed his eyes, yawning wide and licking his teeth..

The door opened, squeaking on the old rusted hinges and Iris appeared in the doorway. She opened one door wide, letting the morning light stream in and walked over to him. Ianto shaded his eyes from the new intruding daylight and moved back into the shadows a little.

"Mr Jones?" She looked at him with intrigue and crossed her arms. "What on earth are you doing?"

Ianto covered his eyes and moved back even more, hiding from the light as much as he could. "Waking up," he said groggily.

"You've slept in here all night?"

"Mostly."

"Why?"

"It's hard to explain," he said.

"You and the Captain had a disagreement." Iris looked down at Ianto. "I heard you arguing last night."

"What did you hear?" Ianto was suddenly scared, but surely if she had heard what she shouldn't have the look on her face wouldn't have been so kind.

"Not much. I just heard you storm out of the room and down the stairs. If i had known that you were going to sleep rough then I would have at least offered you a blanket." She took her shawl from her shoulders and draped it over Ianto's back. "You shouldn't have slept here. You're recovering from a concussion and you're sure to get sick."

"Thank you."

"I haven't been in here for months." Iris sat down beside him and tucked her knees to her chest, casting her eyes around the tall building. "Not since we sold the horses. It's the old stable."

"It doesn't look like a stable."

"We took down the walls to use it as a store."

"Not much stored in here," Ianto said looking around the bare room. "Looks a little empty." He looked up at the roof and at the hole that let the rainwater trickle through. "And derelict."

"Things don't always work out as you hope them to." She smiled, a gentle smile that didn't reach her eyes and sighed heavily. "It's funny that I should find you in here. This is where my brother always used to hide when he didn't want to be found."

"It was the closest thing nearby when it started to rain." Ianto shrugged. "It looked dry and that was good enough for me."

They sat in silence for a while, neither really knowing what to say and then, out of the blue, Iris turned her body to face him and rested her elbows on her knees. She rested her chin in the palms of her hand and studied the Welshman.

"You're rather good looking you know," she said, "quite the handsome kind Mr. Jones if you don't mind me saying so."

"No, of course not." Ianto blushed a little; half out of panic, and the other half out of bashfulness. "It's nice to hear actually, it's just that I'm not-"

"Not what?" she smiled weakly as she looked down at Ianto's grubby feet that seemed to have hay stuck to it.

"Well-" Ianto opened his mouth to speak. "I know that you may think that I'm-"

"Don't take that the wrong way," Iris said quickly, cutting his sentence off before he could complete it. "I'm not showing my interest in you. I was just wondering something."

"Wondering what?"

"You're quite the handsome gentleman, you seem rather kind and from what I know you're a nice natured man. So how is it that you travel with the Captain and Miss Cooper?"

"What do you mean?"

"Aren't you married. Don't you have a someone to miss you?" she asked.

"I did," he said sadly, pulling the shawl around his shoulders to keep himself warm. "Her name was Lisa, but she passed away."

"I'm sorry, i wouldn't have mentioned it if I had known." Iris froze for a while, and then licked her lips before focussing her gaze on the Welshman. "Do you mind me asking what happened to her?"

"I guess you could say that she lost her mind."

"That's terrible, I'm sorry."

"Really?" she asked with the tiniest hint of a smile. "I didn't know that it was you that killed her." Ianto said, watching Iris as she picked up Spike and let him stretch out lazily across her lap. "I have one rule; never apologise for things that you aren't responsible for. There's no good in pointing fingers in an empty room, that's what my mother always said."

A deadly silence filled the old stone building again, and just for a second it almost seemed to cling to the air and then echo around the walls.

"Did Spike do that?" Iris said suddenly, pointing to the deep scratches on Ianto's hand.

"Yes."

"He's a grumpy old man," she said, tickling the cat under his chin, "but I wouldn't have him any other way."

"I'd have him without claws," the Welshman muttered.

Iris chuckled and stroked a purring Spike on her lap. "Do you keep animals?"

"I have a fish," Ianto said. "He's called fish."

"You have a fish called fish?"

"It's self-explanatory," he explained, "I'm a man of very few words."

"You're a man of few words and the Captain is a man of many, usually unnecessary and tinged with a degree of flirtation."

"That's a very accurate observation."

"Well, can't sit here all day." Iris pulled herself to her feet and dusted off her skirt. "I must go and start breakfast, will you be joining me?"

"No. I think I'll just sit here and think for a while if you don't mind."

"Of course not."

"And if you speak to Jack, you haven't seen me."

Iris nodded in understanding and left.

* * *

Gwen sat outside on the old wooden bench and looked out on the rain from the shelter of the porch. It had been a long night and her lack of sleep had made it seem even longer; now it was just past six-thirty in the morning and she had watched the rain fall for the second consecutive hour. She heard the padding of bare feet on the stone behind her and then a firm hand cup her shoulder.

"It's funny how rain in the twentieth century looks just the same as it does in the twenty-first." Jack walked around in front of her and took a seat on the other side of the bench. "Miserable, cold and wet."

"I suppose some things never change."

"Most things don't," he said, leaning back and watching the grey sky as the clouds gathered. "Faces and scenery come and go, but a lot of the things we love remain static. It's fantastic. Not like people, people constantly change."

"You say that like people don't matter."

"People are unpredictable, you never know where you stand, but in Wales it will always rain."

"This isn't about the rain, Jack."

"I didn't say it was about the rain."

"It's about Ianto."

"It's not." Jack's answer was a little too quick and Gwen covered his knee with her hand.

"Yes it is."

"Well, not just Ianto."

"I take it that you two didn't sort things out then."

"I thought we had, I really did."

"But-"

"I thought you would know all about it." His voice was a little harsher than he had meant it. "I'm sure he told you all about it last night."

"Last night?"

Jack turned to face her. "When he ran to you and probably told you everything."

"I haven't seen him since he went after you last night; he didn't come back after that." Gwen narrowed her eyes and shifted closer to the older man, who now had a confused look on his face. "Whatever you think is going on between me and Ianto is all in your head, Jack. I love Rhys."

"then where did he go and where the hell is he now?"

"I don't know, but he wasn't with me. I share a room with iris, no man was getting within a mile of that door."

"Yeah." Jack stood up and started to walk away before turning back. "I'm sorry. I kind of jumped to conclusions."

"Yes you did."

"I was wrong."

"Very."

"And you're going to make me suffer, aren't you?" he asked.

Gwen got up and hobbled her way over to Jack, holding onto him for balance. "You need to go and find him and make the first move to apologise. You're as stubborn as each other and one of you has to take the first step to sort things out."

"This isn't exclusively my fault."

"You can't go on like this, or you and Ianto are going to end up ruining what friendship you have for nothing and we need to stick together here. You two are all I have."

* * *

"Have you seen Ianto?" Jack asked. He put his foot up on the chair and fastened his boot as Iris walked in the kitchen from outside.

"No, sir."

Jack looked at her as he tightened his laces and smiled lightly before straightening his trousers over his boots. "If you see him would you let him know that I need to speak to him as soon as possible?"

"Certainly sir, if I see him I will absolutely let him know."

"Thank you." Jack walked past her, putting his hand on the door handle, and the young woman touched his arm lightly.

"I have not seen his this morning."

"Okay."

"No, I mean-" Iris took a deep breath and looked directly into Jack's eyes as she spoke. "When I was walking I did not see him. I certainly did not see him in the old stables in the paddock."

"Okay-"

"Not sleeping rough," she added. "On the old hay with the cat."

"I see." Jack smiled. "Did he, by any chance, tell you that you should forget that you saw him?"

"I couldn't possibly betray his trust sir," Iris smiled, turning and pouring two cups of tea into old tin cups. "When a man tells you that you haven't seen him you simply can't go around telling people that you have." She handed Jack the tea. "Even if you think that his friend should go and apologise to him for whatever it is that he has done to make him find the cold stone stable more appealing than a warm comfortable bed for the night."

"Thank you."

"It's no bother, just as long as you do not mention the fact that I mentioned what he asked me specifically not to."

"You didn't tell me anything," Jack said making his way to the door.

Iris turned back to the stove and started to crack eggs into a pan of spitting fat. "And send him in for him breakfast will you, he's already risked a cold by sleeping out all night, I wouldn't want him to go hungry."

"Will do." Jack laughed and put the tea down on the bench, walking up behind her. He took her hand and turned her around. "What would we do without you?"

"I dare say you would starve and eventually die Captain. After all that's what most men would do without a good woman to look after them."

"And you certainly are a good woman," Jack said, planting a kiss on her cheek.

"Watch it." Iris blushed a little and rubbed her cheek. "Don't let my father see you kiss me like that, he'll have you out on your ear."

"You wouldn't let him throw me out and you know it,"

"That all depends on whether you go and make it up with Mr. Jones sir." Iris turned to look at him over her shoulder. "The poor boy is in that stable looking lost, like a stray little puppy."

"But you do like strays Miss Hughes," Jack smiled.

"I adore strays, just as long as they don't fight in my garden."

* * *

Jack made his way through the heavy downpour and towards the old stable across the far end of the yard. The cobbled stones were wet and on a few occasions he slipped and had to stop himself from falling; half of the tea in the old tin mugs had been splashed across the stones already and what was left was mixed in with rainwater. He opened the stable door and peeked into the darkness before stepping inside. It was cold, wet and dark; the only light came from the crack in the door and the odd hole in the roof where rain seeped through drop by drop.

Ianto turned and looked at the Captain as he walked in and then avoided his gaze.

"You found me then."

"It was kind of fun," Jack said, edging towards the Welshman slowly. "There's nothing quite like a game of early twentieth century hide and seek to set you up for the day."

"We,, I'm glad you had fun."

"I wouldn't call any of this fun." Jack looked down at him when he reached his side."The old stable huh? Original, yet slightly cliché at the same time."

"She told you."

"Yeah," Jack admitted, "what can I say; I charmed it out of her with my alluring smile and winning personality."

"Sometimes I think it's impossible for you to take anything seriously." Ianto tried not to smile as he played with the scattering of hay on the ground.

"That's not true, I take most things very seriously indeed." Jack sat down beside him on the ground next to Ianto, then handed him one of the old tin mugs. "It's not Coffee and it has rain in it, but it's hot."

"Thank you." Ianto's thanks was barely audible, but at least it was there, and as he took the cup from him he let his fingers brush against Jack's for a moment, pulling away quickly as though he had been burnt by his touch.

They took a few sips of tea in silence until Jack put his mug down on the stone floor.

"I was worried when you didn't come back last night."

"I meant to, I really did."

"Then why didn't you?"

"I had every intention of coming back." Ianto avoided Jack's gaze. "But then it started to rain and I took cover in here with every intention of going back when it stopped, only it never did so I stayed here all night."

"And that's the only reason?"

"I didn't say it was the only reason."

"I think we need to talk."

"I don't." Ianto pulled himself to his feet and made his way to the door

"Right now is a really bad time for us to be fighting," Jack said, following him and stopping him before he could walk out. "We should be sticking together and helping each other out, not avoiding each other and arguing."

"You're the one who is arguing Jack," he said. Ianto turned to face the older man and took a step in his direction. "You were the one who pushed me and pushed me until I had no option but to break."

"I-"

"There's nothing going on between me and Gwen. It was a kiss and that's all."

"We established that last night, this is way beyond that now." He took another step towards the Welshman and set his gaze onto his eyes. "You told me that you felt nothing."

"And?"

"And it was a lie."

"I know." Ianto let his eyes lock onto Jack's for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" he asked. "For lying to me?"

""Lying to you is no problem for me. I have bigger secrets than this."

"So what are you sorry for?"

Ianto opened his mouth to speak, but averted his eyes at the last moment and moved away. "I should go and change out of these clothes, Iris said I would get sick and I would hate to prove her right. I bet she's intolerable when she gets one over on you."

"I think that it's more important for us to talk."

"No. It's not."

"Then let me rephrase it for you." Jack stood behind him. "I need you to talk to me, I need to know why you wouldn't come back. And that means the actual reason, not some half-baked attempt at what you think would be easiest for me to understand."

"Alright."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

"I'll tell you." Ianto turned around and put his hands on Jack's coat, running his fingers down the lapels. "So, you want to know the honest reason why I didn't come back to bed last night?"

"Yes."

Ianto pulled Jack closer to him by his coat; his hands gripping the thick wool until his knuckles turned white, dragging Jack's lips closer to his own and kissed him hard, his mouth crushing against the older man's. He slipped his hand around the back of Jack's neck, keeping him close, his fingers finding their way into his hair when he felt the Captain's hands grip his hips and draw them closer so that no space could pass between.

Ianto pulled away, panting, and pressed their heads together; he opened his eyes and set his gaze upon Jack. His eyes were darker than Jack had ever seen them, and his words were laced with a gravely husk

" Iris knows that we're in here together and the only reason I stopped kissing you now is that at any moment she could come in here and see us. But last night, if I had come back and you were awake?" Ianto's lips brushed Jack's as he spoke. "I would have kissed you again. The door would have been locked and we would have been there alone. Nothing could have stopped me touching you and II wouldn't have been able to let you go.."

"Is that really so bad?"

"Right now it's the worst thing that I can imagine."

"Why?" Jack asked. "Why is a kiss such a big deal to you?"

"A kiss is not just a kiss Jack, not here and now. And you know why."

"No. No actually, I don't."

Ianto took a step back and finally removed Jack from his grip.

"If we were back home and I felt this way then nothing could have stopped me, but this is a different time Jack; it's a whole different world."

"Tell me why what we do behind locked doors here is any different to back home?"

"Because it is."

"Why?"

"Do you even know what they do to people like us here?" Ianto asked, closing the gap between them again.

"I know. I've been in far worse times than this."

"Then you know, Jack." He put his hand on Jack's face and trailed his thumb across his cheekbone. "You know that they're not so accepting in this time. You can't just live your life the way you want to here, especially not in such a small community."

"But behind closed doors-"

"Nothing is behind closed doors forever."

"Not forever," Jack said. "Just until we find our way back."

"And what if we don't?"

"We will."

"But what if we don't, what then?" Ianto's voice was calm and low as though he was whispering and his eyes stayed fixed on Jack's. "Do we hide away and hope that nobody finds out about us, because you can't hide it forever. Someone will find out Jack, and then we're as good as dead." His voice shook a little. "This thing between us has to stop before it really begins."

"You're reading far too much into this," Jack said, running his fingers across Ianto's lips. "You're in a place that you don't fully understand and you're just a little bit scared so you're over-thinking. I understand that."

"No."

"Yes."

"I'm not over-thinking. I know exactly what would happen . They would lock us up and life would be finished," he tried to move away but Jack was stronger and held his body close. "That life is not easy, it's hard graft that makes your hands bleed and life is downgraded to a mere existence full of shame; I can't live through that, it'll kill me Jack."

"You know." Jack took a sudden step back and looked at Ianto; his mouth opened and closed without speech a few times until he finally found his voice. "You're not over thinking or fearing the worst, you actually know."

"Jack-"

"You're not out of your time here are you? You're slap bang in the middle of it."

Ianto backed away and distanced himself from a shocked Jack who glared at him, demanding an answer. "I should go-"

"You can't." Jack pulled him back from the doorway. "You have to explain this to me because I'm not understanding much of anything."

"He promised me that I wouldn't have to live in this world again," Ianto said. "He said I would be safe and now I'm not."

"Who did?"

"I'm not safe, I'm right back in the worst place I could possibly be with the worst possible person I could ever be with. He broke his promises and now things couldn't be worse."

"Who?"

"It doesn't matter," the Welshman shook his head. "He doesn't matter any more, he's long gone."

"Who?"

"Charles. He was my lover; he worked for Torchwood."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't know how, I didn't know what you would do to me. Torchwood is all I have, everything else is fake, even my family is made up. I have nobody and it's all his fault."

"What happened?"

" I was in hell, Jack. My existence was nothing. I had nothing, until one day I couldn't take it anymore, so I took a chance, I murdered someone who tried to stop me running because it was him or me. Then I didn't know what to do, I just made a run for it and I went back to Charlie and asked him to hide me so they could never find me. He helped me escape this time and promised this me he wouldn't be far behind, but he never came for me. He left me in a world I didn't understand, alone and scared, but I've never been more scared than I am right now."

"Its ok." Jack approached him and held his face in his hands.

"It's not! Right now there's a version of me locked away in a prison, for the crime of loving someone I shouldn't."

"But you're here with me and it's ok. Why are you so scared?"

"This year, it's the worst year of my existence. In three months I kill that guard and escape, I become a wanted man and if they find me, they'll hang me, Jack."

"They're not going to find you. I'll get us home. I'll find a way."

"Promise me," Ianto demanded.

"I can't do that. But I'll keep you safe. I won't let anyone hurt you and that Is a promise." Jack pressed his forehead to Ianto's temple. "We just have to stick together and everything will be fine." He kissed his lips gently. "Don't worry."

"This doesn't change anything," Ianto said. "I still can't be with you, not in this time."

"And when we get back?"

Ianto returned Jack's soft kiss and raked his fingers through the Captain's hair for a moment before pulling away. "I still won't be able to control this; it's hard enough when I can walk away at the end of the day."

Jack cupped Ianto's cheeks in his hands and pressed a kiss to his lips. He wrapped his arms around the younger man, pulling his head against his shoulder; his lips brushed against Ianto's ear. "I could probably handle all this if only I wasn't stuck here with you."

"And we are stuck," Ianto whispered, trailing his hands across Jack's back. "I can't think of anything worse."

"You could be alone."

"I don't even think that would be worse to be honest." His smile was so faint it was barely there.

"We should probably head back in."

"Yeah."

Jack ran his thumb across the back of Ianto's neck, feeling the soft skin beneath his fingertips; every fibre of his being was telling him to let go, but the fingers that caressed the Welshman's skin refused. He could feel the slow beating of the younger man's heart thump through his chest, and the heat of Ianto's breath on his neck was comfortable and warm; he didn't want to let go.

"They're probably starting to wonder where we've got to," Jack said. "They'll be sending out a search party."

"I know." Ianto stepped back a little to break the embrace, only to find Jack's firm hands on the back of his neck, pulling him back. A soft kiss landed on his shoulder and a hot breath tickled his earlobe. He settled back into the comfort of Jack's arms and inhaled the familiar scent that never seemed to fade.

"We could wait until the rain stops," Jack whispered, "just stay in here for a while." He trailed his thumb across the back of Ianto's neck again and felt Ianto's hot breath exhale onto his cool neck. "It's warm and dry in here with you."

"Out there-"

"I don't want to think about what's out there. I never get the chance to forget the world exists."

"And you never will." Ianto sighed heavily and gripped onto Jack's shoulder. "Reality is the one thing that you can't run away from; i've tried too many times."

The older man planted a small kiss on Ianto's neck and rested his warm lips on the cool skin. "I just wish we could hide from it. I'm sick of being the one who never gets to hide away once in a while."

"Jack." Ianto reached behind him and lifted the Captain's hand from his neck, lacing their fingers together by his side. "We really need to go."

Ianto broke away from him and made his way towards the door, leaving Jack behind.

"I'll get us home," Jack said.

"Let's hope so." Ianto didn't turn back to face him. "I refuse to live through this life again."


	9. Chapter 9

The bedroom was cold at 6am in rural Wales; a lack of heating and the darkness of the world outside, with rain battering the sash windows, seemed to make lying under the warm blankets a much more appealing option than getting up. The three layers of bedclothes and a pair of cotton pyjamas were cosy though, and as Jack lay in bed pretending to sleep he wished he didn't have to get up so soon. In addition to all of that of course, there was the attraction of the gorgeous Welshman sprawled out over his chest.

Ianto had spent most of the night glued to the edge of the bed, keeping his distance, but at 5am he stirred and turned; now he was lying with one leg hooked over Jack's and his head buried in his chest, one of his hands had moving to rest on Jack's thigh. He could feel the roughness of the Welshman's three day stubble through the open pyjama jacket, scratching ever so slightly when he moved.

"Ianto?" he whispered.

The Welshman made an unrecognisable noise that fell halfway between a moan and a groan. He slipped his hand over Jack's chest, his fingers resting above his heart.

"Ianto?" Jack stroked his shoulder. " Are you getting up?"

"Why?" he mumbled. "What time is it?"

"Six."

"Wake me at seven." Ianto snuggled further into him, nuzzling into his neck a little, his lips brushing against Jack's neck. "It's too comfortable here. I'm not moving and you can't make me."

Jack could feel Ianto's hand moving from his chest, slipping down slowly until it rreached his cock, erect and ready.

"You're so warm." Ianto whispered, his breath heating Jacks skin.

"What are you doing?"

"Something I probably shouldn't." He pressed a kiss against the other man's neck. "Did you lock the door last night?"

"Yeah." Jack smiled a little. "Even though you said there was no reason to."

"I did?"

"Yes, you did. Then you slept so far away from me you almost fell out of bed."

"Well, I don't remember saying that." Ianto slipped his hand over the material of Jack's pyjamas, stroking his length slowly. "Although it does sound like something I might say in this situation."

Jack put his head back on the pillow and swallowed hard before closing his eyes and exhaling a long controlled breath. Ianto's hand was moving slowly across the fabric of His pyjamas, his lips deliberately brushing his neck, heating the skin with every breath.

Jack considered stopping it, but when Ianto's fingers slipped into the gap between the buttons and he changed his mind. He raked his fingers through the Welshman's hair, tightening his grip a little when he felt his hand stroke him; he bit his lip for a moment before shifting a little, pressing himself further into Ianto's willing hand. He could feel Ianto's lips against his neck as they curved slowly into a smile.

"Ianto," he whispered, his breath heavy. "You should probably stop."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No, but you probably should."

"Probably."

Ianto shifted a little more, nuzzling Jack's neck as he slipped his leg further over his, pinning him a little with his weight. He kissed his neck, sucking the skin into his mouth a little, then kissed a trail of kisses that led to his ear. Jack moaned a little too loudly when Ianto's tongue came into contact with his earlobe, and the younger man stopped, pulling back to look at him for the first time that morning, his hand still keeping a steady rhythm.

"You're supposed to be quiet," he said, a slight smile tugging on his lips.

"If you want me to be quiet, you're going the wrong way about it." Jack closed his eyes again when Ianto picked up the pace a little, his head falling back onto the bed as he arched his neck.

"Complaining?"

"No." Jack's voice was barely audible. He licked his lips and moved his hand to cup Ianto's cheek, pulling him into a searing kiss, raising his hips off the bed to get closer to the younger man's hand. His fingers gripped Ianto's hair, keeping his close, moving away only to find his breath, lost between the heat of the kisses and the quickening of his pulse.

"Why aren't you stopping me?" Ianto's lips hovered precariously close, the warmth of his breath finding Jack's mouth. "We had an agreement that we wouldn't let each other do things like this."

"I don't want you to."

Ianto lowered his head, pressing a trail of kisses over his chest and down his stomach until he reached the waistband of his pyjamas. Releasing Jack from his touch, he pulled down the waistband before replacing his hand with the heat of his mouth.

Jack's hands found the bed, clinging onto the sheets as he focused on keeping quiet, hard rapid breaths escaping from his mouth. He closed his eyes again, concentrating on the warmth of the younger man's lips as he felt the release.

He collapsed down on the bed, taking a moment to recover his breath before grabbing the younger man's hand and pulling him down into a kiss. Jack traced his fingers down Ianto's jaw and felt the heat of his breath on his lips

"How are we going to sleep in the same bed If we keep doing things like this?" He asked. "We said we wouldn't, but-"

"You let me get carried away." Ianto rolled over and lay beside him, covering his face with his hands. "It's this place. There's nothing to keep me busy here, nothing to distract me. This is what happens when I don't have an archive room to organise, or a coffee machine to work or a- bloody Weevil to wrangle into a cell"

"How long have you been distracting yourself?

"Since the day we met." Ianto sighed. "It was okay at first; I had Lisa and then I was too busy to really do anything about it, but now?"

"It's going to be alright, you know?" Jack rolled onto his side and stroked the Welshman's cheek. "I know it might be the worst time possible, but it feels right."

"I'm making all the same mistakes all over again and part of me doesn't even care."

"I don't want to be a mistake."

"You're not, it's this place that is the mistake." Ianto turned to face him and pushed Jack's hair away from his face. "We should be in a different time, in a different bed and I shouldn't be scared."

"I know." Jack pushed him onto his back, propping himself up on his elbow to look at him, then kissed his lips softly, his fingers resting on his neck; he could feel his pulse underneath his fingers. "We're going to work this out."

"You're not helping," Ianto said, his lips finding Jack's again.

"You started it."

"I know."

"I don't have the strength to stop you. This is the only time I get with you, in here with the door locked is the only place I can touch you like I want without consequences."

"There are still consequences, Jack."

"You're safe in here with me," he promised, his lips falling to his shoulder. He kissed the soft skin underneath his lips, tasting the slightly salted skin.

"But I'm not safe out there."

"If anyone tries to hurt you, they'll have to go through me first."

"That was almost romantic. " Ianto smiled a little; he could feel the other man's lips curve into a smile against the skin of his neck, pressing a kiss just below his ear as he peppered his skin with lazy kisses.

"I have my moments."

"Y'know, I _can_ look after myself."

"I know, I remember your right hook." Jack's lips found his mouth again, kissing him softly. "There's something really attractive about a guy who can knock me off my feet."

Ianto's hands raked through Jack's hair as their bodies moved closer, their hips finding a slow rhythm; soft moans were lost within mouths and hot breaths mingled together a little. Ianto couldn't resist and wrapped his arms around him, pulling him into the heat of his lips.

His fingers ran underneath his pyjama jacket, pushing it up his back, crumpling the fabric to get to the warm skin underneath.

A harsh knock on the door forced their lips apart and a soft female voice filtered through the wood. "Are you boys decent?"

"No." Jack said calmly, touching Ianto's face as he stared at him with lustful eyes from above him. "Give us a minute."

"Well don't be long, your hot water is cooling and the bowl is heavy."

Jack ran his hand down Ianto's neck slowly and rested his fingers on his collarbone. "Someone really needs to teach that girl the importance of judging between good and bad timing."

"It could be worse, it could've been five minutes ago." Ianto licked his lips nervously and swallowed a dry lump in his throat; he blinked quickly a few times before finding his voice through hard panting breaths. "What do we do now?"

"Go and open the door."

"It's a bit hard for me at the moment." Ianto pressed his erection into Jack's thigh. "I don't think shes ready to see that, do you?"

"Okay." He kissed his lips softly. "We'll finish this later."

Jack stood up, fastened his pyjama jacket and made his way towards the door, giving Ianto some time to get under the sheets and straighten his pyjamas. He opened the door and looked at Iris as she walked in and placed a large bowl of water on a table at the furthest corner of the room.

"You two should get up," she said. "It's past six."

"I'm sorry. Six is early where we come from."

She walked over to the window and pulled open the curtains. Bright sunlight streamed through the window and the sound of birds filtered through when she pulled up the sash window open a little.

"Some morning air is what you need to wake you up. Get some country air into those city lungs."

"Goodmorning." She looked at Ianto. "Sir, you look practically flustered."

"Do I?" Ianto asked nervously.

"You look hot and bothered." Iris sat down on the bed and put her hand on his forehead. "You feel a little warm, too. I do hope that fever isn't starting to set in."

"I feel fine."

"You're looking rather ragged." A small smile crossed her lips, and barely reached the corner of her eyes before she lowered it. "And I don't mean that in a good way. You both need a shave."

"I don't have a razor," he said, moving away a little.

"I'll get you one for this evening. We're expecting cousins for dinner tomorrow night and I couldn't possibly let them see our house guests looking like something we've scraped up off the streets."

"Of course not."

"I should think you two will scrub up really well," she said, looking between the two of them. "I'd be careful if I were you, My cousin Beatrice is a modern kind of girl. London-bred. She's ruthless. You two should want to stick together to avoid her advances."

"If she's as beautiful as you I'm not sure we would want to," Jack said.

"Mr. Jones?" Iris turned to face Ianto. "Do you suppose he thinks that his charm works on me?"

"Jack supposes his charm works on everyone," he replied. "He expects every species to fall at his feet."

"You're too confident for your own good. You should know that girls much prefer the quiet type."

"Is that so?"

"Yes. Modesty is very attractive in a man, ego is not."

She looked over at Ianto as she made her way towards the door. "I'll put you some bacon on; you liked that yesterday." Turning to Jack, she let a smirk cross her lips. "You can have porridge."

Iris left the room with a gentle swish of her dress and closed the door behind her.

"Oh," Jack smirked. "Miss Iris _likes_ you."

""Or maybe she just finds you a little hard to take." Ianto pulled the sheets back and got out of bed, making his way over to where his clothes had been laid out the evening before.

Jack followed him over and wrapped his arms around his body, pulling him back; he lowered his lips to whisper in his ear.

"Well, you certainly don't seem to have any problems in that department."

"That's inappropriate." Ianto smiled a little, leaning back against him as he unfastened his shirt, peeling it off his shoulders.

"Considering how you behaved this morning, you have no place lecturing on appropriateness."

The door opened and they jumped apart, Jack swiftly removing his hand from Ianto's chest.

'I forgot your towels."

"Thanks."

"Don't be long, I have things to do after breakfast." Iris handed them over and left, shutting the door behind her.

"We should get dressed," Ianto said, moving further away from him. "And calm ourselves down before breakfast, because _that_ was far too close for my liking."

* * *

Tosh opened her eyes and rolled over in bed. The unfamiliar silky sheets were soft and luxurious and the scent of Owen's aftershave clung to the pillow underneath her cheek. She got up, pulling the long t-shirt over her legs and walked into the kitchen, tucking her hair behind her ear. She stopped in the doorway and watched Owen as he flipped an egg over in the frying pan; she hadn't forgotten his promise of breakfast, although she had fully expected a bowl of rice crispies being far more his level of hospitality.

"Morning."

"It's about time you got up."

"You should've woken me."

"I tried, you were out like a light." he said, turning around to face her.

"I must've needed it."

"Now _that_ is an outfit you should definitely wear to the office." Owen's eyes fell to Toshiko's legs, the hem of his shirt cutting off at the top of her thigh. "Although I suspect nobody would get much work done if you did."

"Oh." Tosh looked down at herself, pulling the hem down a little more as she felt her cheeks burning pink. "I should get dressed."

"Come here." Owen walked over to her and put his hand on her waist, guiding her into the kitchen. He pulled out a stool for her and tapped the seat. "Sit down."

"I should-"

"Eat first, you've got nothing I haven't seen a thousand times." Owen put a plate in front of her.

"You know how to flatter a woman."

"Eat." He smiled a little, sliding another egg onto her plate. "

"Thanks"

"So, I was up pretty early this morning and I-" Owen felt his eyes falling onto Tosh's legs as the shirt rode up a little exposing more of her thigh. "I went-"

"You went where?"

"I went to-" he searched for his words. "Shit."

"What?"

"Nothing." Owen turned away from her, returning to the sink to wash up his dishes. "I got up early and went for a run to try and clear my head and I had a brainwave."

"It had to happen eventually I suppose."

"Funny."

"What was it?" Tosh smiled a little, leaning on the counter as she ate her breakfast.

"Ianto has a load of stuff from Torchwood one on his computer, I think we should see if there's anything on the device in his files. He said it was familiar, so maybe he's seen it somewhere before."

"Good idea. I'm going to head back to the warehouse and take some up to date readings, then set up some rift monitors."

"Not without me you're not," he said.

"What?"

"Tosh." He leaned on the counter in front of her. "I've already lost Jack, Ianto and Gwen, I'm not letting you bugger off through the rift, too. No, if you go we both go."

"Okay."

"I thought you would fight me more on that."

"No, you're right. We need to stick together." Tosh smiled a little. "And thanks for letting me stay."

"Don't mention it."

"And breakfast."

"Dont get too used to it," Owen said. "That was a once in a lifetime deal."

"I'll return the favour one day," she promised. "Traditional Japanese."

"Are you planning on inviting me to stay?"

"Well-" Tosh looked at him across the kitchen counter for a moment, her words suddenly vacant. "I was just being polite."

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I was just teasing." Owen backed away a little distancing himself.

"Me too," she said quickly. "Banter, that's all."

"I need a shower."

"Okay."

"You stay here and eat your breakfast."

"Well I wasn't planning on coming in with you."

"Of course not!" Owen backed into the fridge as he backed away. "Anyway, so-"

"Shower?"

"Yeah." Owen retreated, finding his way into the bathroom. He shut the door behind him and rested his back against it, covering his face with his hands. "Shit."

* * *

The water had almost completely cooled by the time Jack had finished washing, and he threw the face cloth into the bowl with a splash. He looked over his shoulder as he dried his face and looked at the Welshman sitting on the bed, fastening up his boots. Looking up, Ianto found Jack's gaze before concentrating on the laces again.

Jack leant against the wall and put his hands in his pockets, looking side-on at Ianto. "I miss my shower," he said. "I like hot running water in a morning. And a shave."

Ianto said nothing; he had spoken very little since Iris had left them, spending close to twenty minutes dressing slowly in silence.

Jack draped the damp towel over the cast-iron bed frame and leant on the wall, looking over at Ianto. "So, you're not talking to me now?"

"I'm not consciously not talking to you," he said. "I just have nothing to say."

"I can think of a few things."

"I don't want to talk, Jack." Ianto stood briefly and slipped the white shirt on over his vest, then sat back down to fasten it, paying close attention to the buttons. "Talking sometimes just makes things worse."

Jack sighed and slumped down on the bed, lying down and covering face with his hands. A frustrated growl escaped from his mouth, muffled by his hands.

"What?"

Jack slowly removed his hands and sat up, turning to face the Welshman. "Do you even know how much you drive me crazy sometimes?" he asked. "Very few people have ever been able to bring me to my knees the way you do."

Ianto smirked a little. "That's not what I've heard."

Jack chuckled and took another deep breath, looking over at Ianto, his face still supporting a little smirk. He nudged his shoulder playfully.

"We can't go on like this. One minute you're all over me and the next it's like I dint exist."

"No," Ianto said. "I know that."

"Things are hard enough without us being this way. We have to keep it together if we're going to keep our heads down."

"It's just hard; I can't ignore you, but when I acknowledge you-"

"You cant resist me." Jack smiled.

"As much as I would like to keep my pride and pretend that isn't the case, I would prove myself wrong far too quickly."

"I think we've both successfully proved that we're not capable of resisting those particular urges."

"If i could be sure of being able to go out there and look at you the same way as I did before all of this happened, then I wouldn't been so keen to resist," Ianto said. "But I know that if anything major did happen between us, then I wouldn't be able to look at you across the dinner table without wanting to leap over it ever again."

"And we can't have that."

"Definitely not."

"We'd squash the potatoes and break the china." Jack queried an eyebrow. "That would make us very bad house guests."

"We had better keep our hands to ourselves then."

"Probably best."

"Although," Ianto took Jack's hand and turned to face him. "There's no need to keep too much distance between when nobody can see."

"Really?"

"But only when that door is locked, no carelessness."

"No." Jack shook his head and looked at Ianto with the smallest hint of a smirk on his lips. "No more slip-ups."

"I might not sleep too far across the other side of the bed tonight."

"We can share the middle," Jack suggested, running his fingers up the Welshman's wrist. "Nights get cold."

"Just as long as we don't do anything that could lead to us to-"

"Squashing the potatoes and breaking the china?"

"Yes."

"But when we get home-"

"We could, potentially, break anything we wanted on _my_ kitchen table."

Jack licked his dry lips and leaned towards the Welshman. "And is your kitchen table sturdy enough to break things on?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried it out yet." Ianto ran his hands along Jack's thighs and hooked his thumbs inside the waistband of his trousers; he locked his eyes on Jack and let a small smirk tug at the corner of his lips. "I locked the door when Iris left."

"You're a very cruel man."

"So I've been told."

"I can see you making things really hard for me."

Ianto closed the gap between them and pushed Jack back onto the bed, straddling him; he hovered over him, bracing himself on his arms, Jack's lips close enough to touch.

"You're taking advantage of me now," Jack said, closing his eyes. He could feel the gentle pressure as Ianto moved his hips a little from his dominant position above him. "I can't say I'm hating it."

"Iris will be knocking on that door in a minute. We're missing breakfast."

"I don't mind," Jack breathed resting his hands on Ianto's hips. "I'm not hungry in the slightest."

"I should go down."

"I insist that you do," Jack whimpered, sliding his hands around to Ianto's backside. "You're really very good at it."

Ianto smiled a little and Jack opened his eyes, fixing them on the His gaze. "I meant downstairs."

"The hell you did. You're such a cocktease."

"Maybe," Ianto smirked, lowering himself down and positioning his head to whisper into Jack's ear. "But I'm a good one."

"Or a bad one," Jack turned his head. "It really depends on definition." He pulled the younger man's hips down, grabbing him and pulling their bodies closer together. "You really don't want to leave at this point."

"I think this is the perfect time to leave."

"You're probably right."

"I think I'm going to have to sit next to you at breakfast," he breathed. "Looking across the table at you would be a very bad idea this morning."

"Maybe." Jack pulled Ianto down for a kiss, letting it linger a moment.

"I need breakfast." Ianto climbed off, offering his hand to Jack to pull him to his feet. He tucked the older man's shirt into his trousers, running a hand down his chest to straighten the buttons.

"Do you intend to dress me every morning?"

"I like to look after you."

Jack took his hand and pressed a kiss to his palm. "Let's go and breakfast."

Ianto kissed his lips softly, then stepped away and unlocked the door, opening it for him.

"Thank you Mr. Jones."


	10. Chapter 10

Owen pulled his gun from his belt and edged his way into the familiar warehouse; it was cold, colder than it had been last time, and reeked unlike anything he had ever experienced. He put his hand across his mouth and tried to stop himself from gagging, then continued into the warehouse.

"God! What the hell is that smell?"

"That smell is what we're here to investigate," he reminded her. "Now had it been just a normal report of a funky smell coming from a warehouse on the docks I might have just put it down to something rational, but this is in the same place."

"So it has to be connected."

"Exactly." Owen pulled her back inside by her jacket and pointed his torch up at the ceiling. Creatures that looked like a cross between a bat and a dog hung from in rows, covered in a blue gunge that seemed to drip slowly to the ground at irregular intervals; there must have been a couple hundred of them all sleeping in their slimy blue cocoons.

"What is it?" Tosh asked, backing away to side-step a large splatter of the blue liquid that fell in front of her. "And what the hell are those?"

"Fuck if I know." He pulled a pair of examination gloves from his pocket and slipped them on, then crouched down to inspect the gunge. "I think the best thing to do is to take a sample of this stuff and see if we can sedate one of those things." Owen pointed to the ceiling. "Maybe they will give us some kind of clue."

"I've seen something like them before somewhere." Tosh set down her rucksack and pulled out a digital camera; she took a few pictures of the strange looking creatures and then one of the gunge. "I used to have a book about mythical creatures, and I'm sure I saw those creatures somewhere in one of them, only they were smaller than that." Tosh pointed up the cocoon's; each were at least four foot high and tightly packed together so that they took up as little space as possible.

"Mythical creatures huh?" Owen said, shining his light onto the ceiling and catching a glimpse of fang-like teeth protruding out from one of the creatures; he jumped back a little. "No creature seems mythical after you've been in this job for a while."

Tosh tossed Owen a sample jar and a small tool belt.

"Are they sleeping?"

"Well, they're definitely not dead and if they were awake I have a feeling that we might just be food, or at least a decent sized snack. Owen crouched down and took a sample of the gunge, putting it into the jar. "Those fangs aren't the calling card of a vegetarian species."

"So what do we do if they wake up?"

"Run?" Owen suggested, stepping over the remaining gunge on the floor and towards the end of the large room.

"That's it?" she asked, "That's the best plan that you can come up with"

"A couple hundred flying dragon dog things with fucking huge teeth are after you, would you happen to have a better idea?"

"I guess not."

"Well, then." They walked a little further down a corridor and then stopped. Owen pulled a syringe out of his pocket and held it up for Tosh to see. "Keep your eyes open, if there's one of those things awake, then I want it caught."

hr

"Okay, what happened?" Gwen walked over to Jack as he hammered a nail into the broken fence.

"I don't know." Jack stood back and looked at the large hole. "It looks like something crashed through it."

"Not to the fence. To you."

"Me?" He turned around and stopped working, throwing his hammer onto the ground gently. "Nothing happened to me."

"Yesterday, you were walking around with a dark cloud above your head, and today you look like the cat who got the cream."

"So?"

"It's like Rhys. He can be in a shitty mood and all I have to do is-" She smiled. "You didn't!"

"Didn't what?"

"Don't act innocent!"

"I was unhappy yesterday and today I'm feeling a bit better, that's all."

"You you expect me to believe that you just happen to be in a better mood today than you were yesterday and that it has nothing at all to do with the reason why you and Ianto were late for breakfast this morning?"

Jack turned away. "No."

"When Iris and her father went outside and I turned around to get another cup of tea. You put your hand on Ianto's crotch and he shooed you away."

"Oh yeah." Jack smiled. "I may have done that." He picked his hammer back up and started to work on the fence again.

"So?" she prompted.

"So, what?"

"So, what happened?"

"Nothing I'm telling you about in 1901"

"You two are impossible," Gwen moaned, resting her back against the fence as she looked down at him. "I couldn't get anything out of Ianto and now I can't get anything out of you."

"Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, there's no big scandal?"

"No!"

Jack chuckled and took a deep breath, looking up at her. "Don't you have better things to do?"

"Jack!" Gwen prompted him for an answer and he looked away.

"Its complicated."

"What's compllic-"

A blood-curdling scream sounded out from somewhere in the distance and Jack leapt up, running towards the direction where it had come from. He ran across the courtyard, tripping a little as he sprinted, and bumped heads with Ianto as they collided.

"What was that?" Ianto asked.

The scream came again, louder this time and Ianto and Jack ran off to follow it. They ran into the barn and stopped when they saw Iris backed into a corner with a creature growling at her; it stood on its hind-legs and spread out its bat-like wings to their full width. The creature's skin was grey and hairless, with blue veins that glowed and throbbed in their wings like flashing neon lights; its feet had claws that dug into the stone, leaving indentations, and the muscles in the hind legs were strong like a fighting dog. It stood tall, reaching about six foot, and when it growled again it was loud and reverberated around the walls.

Ianto looked on the ground at the horse that was lying on its side with wounds that were inches deep and seeping blue gunge; his eyes were open, fluttering a little, and its legs desperately moved to try and get up. It seemed to be in pain and let out a high pitched noise that turned the beast's attention from Iris.

It made it's way over, backing Ianto into the corner and towards the injured horse. The creature's teeth were long, more than a few inches, and the face looked harrowing, like a pit-bull cross-bred with a vampire bat; hairless and hungry for blood.

Jack looked around the room and picked up the closest thing to hand, a long-handled broom which was leaning against the wall.

"Jack!" Ianto said, backing away slowly, never taking his eyes off the beast, "I really don't think that's going to do any good unless you intend on sweeping it to death!"

He looked at the broom and snapped it in half before thrusting the jagged end into the creature's back in a soft spot between its wings. It fell backwards and landed on the ground with a thud, narrowly missing Jack. Its eyes were still open and its legs sprawled around on the floor.

"Get Iris out of here," Jack instructed. "I'll meet you outside." He backed away as the beast managed to flip over and crawl its way over to him, the wings dragging against the floor.

Ianto made his way over to Iris and pulled her up, leading her out of the door.

The beast moved over to Jack, crawling along the stone floor with his red eyes zoned in on him; claws scraped across the ground and wings flopped and dragged behind. There wasn't far left for Jack to go as he backed himself into the corner, but the creature looked weak and it's breathing was heavy and strained. He waited for it to come to him a little more before moving swiftly towards it and sticking the wooden stick through the centre of the beast's chest.

An almighty roar sounded from somewhere inside the animal and it fell backwards, landing on the stone heavily, cracking it where it lay.

Jack took a closer look and nudged the creature with his foot; it was definitely dead, and the blood that seeped from the wound was blue and glowing. Slowly, the veins in the creature's wings started to fade until the whole body had faded to a static grey. He walked outside and closed the door behind him, resting against it for a moment.

He cast his eyes over at Ianto who sat on the ground, with Iris lying in front of him.

"What happened?" Jack asked, "it didn't bite her, did it?"

"No. She fainted."

"Oh, good."

"What was that thing?" Ianto questioned, tapping Iris' face to try and wake her.

"God only knows, but I've never seen it before." He looked down at Iris as she started to flutter her eyes open a little. "You should get her inside."

"And say what?"

"Anything but the truth."

Owen walked into the room carefully and shone his torch on the floor. The caucuses of dead rats lay on the ground, and some were moving, only half living, attempting to move.

"Well at least we know how they've been surviving," he said, moving his way through the room and towards the corner where one of the beasts sat in the corner, feasting on a small domestic animal. "That looks like the perfect specimen, wouldn't you say?"

"If you can get it."

Owen handed Tosh his torch and she lit the back of the creature whilst Owen removed the cap from the syringe that he kept in his pocket. He edged his way over to it and pounced on it quickly, stabbing the needle into it's neck and injecting it with the solution. The beast turned and looked at him with sleepy red eyes, stalking him across the room.

"I don't think it worked." Owen said, backing away.

Tosh bent over, picking an old brick from the ground, then lifted it above her head with both hands and bashed it on the head, knocking the creature out, then pressed the stun gun into the base of its spine. "That worked."

"Thanks." Owen filled another syringe and sedated it again. "That should do it."

"That one looks small," Tosh said, crouching down to inspect it.

"It's probably an offspring." Owen took off his jacket and covered the creature with it, bundling it up and cradling it. It was small, but heavy and the fangs looked under-developed; the claws were sharp, but only measured half an inch and the skin was wrinkled. It was most definitely not an adult like the ones hanging from the high ceiling on the other room; they were at least four feet in height with smoother skin and sharper talons.

"We should get it back to the hub," Owen said. "I want to run some tests."

"Do you think it's connected?"

"I don't see how it could be anything else. It's in the same place as the others went missing, and they're definitely a product of the rift. We should get out of here."

As they turned to walk out, a large creature shrouded the room in darkness, blocking out any light with it's wings; it was much larger than the others by at least a few feet, with wings that spanned twice as wide as the height.

"I think we've found mama," Owen said.

"She doesn't look happy."

"No."

"Is it time to do that running thing you were talking about earlier?" Tosh asked, spotting another door to an unknown corridor across the other side of the room. "Because I'm really starting to see the attraction of that plan."

"Yep. Run."

hr

Ianto carried Iris into the living room and laid her down on the couch; she was awake but every time she tried to walk she just stumbled on her weak legs. He untied her laces and removed her shoes, putting her feet up on a cushion, placed another under her head for comfort.

"What was it?" Iris spoke softly, but her voice filtered through the silent room.

"A hybrid," Ianto lied quickly, kneeling down on the ground. "A scientific experiment gone wrong."

"It was hideous."

"It's dead now."

Iris hesitated a little before sitting up and looking down at Ianto on the floor. "You saved me from it. You and the Captain risked your lives for me. Why?"

"What kind of house guests would we be if we let a beast kill our hostess?"

Iris returned the smile that Ianto gave her, and then it dropped suddenly from her face. She looked out the window. "Do you suppose there are any more out there?"

"I don't know." Ianto pulled himself to his feet and sat next to Iris on the couch. "But it may be better if you don't mention this to anyone."

"Why?"

"It's just a bad idea. They don't understand and they wouldn't believe you anyway."

"What about my father?" she asked, "he really ought to know."

"Why?"

"I tell him everything," Iris said, "I couldn't lie."

"You wouldn't be lying, more like omitting."

"Which is lying by default," she argued.

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Then believe me when I tell you that there is no good that can come of telling anyone about this."

"What are you hiding?" she asked. "You, the Captain, Gwen. What's the big secret?"

"What makes you think that we have secrets?"

Iris turned her body to face Ianto and looked directly into his eyes. "You dress differently, you behave differently and you lie about why you're here. So, the least that you can do is tell me why you lie to me when I'm no threat."

"I'm not-"

"Ianto!" The girl's tone was sharp, and shocked him a little. She took a breath and relaxed a little. "Mr. Jones. Tell me what you're hiding. Please?"

"We all have secrets," he said. "But some are meant to be that way. The secrets that we hold and the things that we don't tell you are things that you don't want to believe."

"How would you know that I don't want to believe them when you don't know who I am?"

"For the same reasons that you trust me when you know I'm lying to you." Ianto stood up and started to walk away, only to feel himself being pulled back.

"I don't like secrets, but i do trust you. I know that if you tell me that what you're hiding is something that I don't want to know then it must be a secret bigger than the world itself." She stood up and walked over to him. "By all means keep your secrets, but don't suffer by protecting someone who doesn't need to be protected."

"Iris-"

"I don't need protecting."

"I'm not protecting you; I'm protecting everyone else."

"I worry about you," Iris moved her free hand to cup his cheek.

"Don't."

"I feel like something is going to happen to you. I can see it, and I worry for you when you're caught up in these lies." She let her fingers fall from his face and took a step back. "Please don't lie to me."

"The world can't cope with our secrets, and neither can you." He turned and headed for the door. "I'm going to see if Jack needs me in the barn."

hr

"I've never seen anything like it." Jack was inspecting the wound in the side of the horse, whilst Gwen tried to patch it up with gauze. "The wounds are so deep, but it's almost like they were filled in with this gunge. I've removed it as much as I can, but I don't know if he's going to make it"

"At times like this we could do with Owen being around"

"And tosh," Jack added.

"We're a team for a reason."

"It stinks," Jack said. "It's blue and it stinks; I've never seen it before and I have no desire to see it again."

"What do you think it is?"

"It's probably a way or warning other creatures away from its food."

"I bet it works too, I know I'd never eat anything that smelt like that. Can the horse be saved?"

"I don't know, he's in a lot of pain and we have no idea what that stuff has done to it. My bigger concern would be what the hell we do with that." Jack pointed to the dead beast which was now slightly embedded in the stone of the floor.

"We could bury it?"

"And risk someone finding it and declaring it a new species of dinosaur or something? No we'll have to burn it."

"I bet this wasn't the way that you saw this morning panning out."

"Definitely not." Jack sighed heavily and threw a large sheet over the creature. "The day started out good, very good." He smirked a little, then stopped himself and proceeded to drag the heavy body of the creature over to the corner. "This is not how I envisioned my day at all."

"And all this before lunch."

"Do you suppose it came through with us?" Ianto appeared in the doorway and walked over to help Jack drag the body. "Or do you think the rift has opened again?"

"I didn't even think about that," Jack said, giving Ianto a smile over the carcass of the creature.

"How's Iris?" Gwen asked.

Ianto took a deep breath and shook his head. "She's on to us. Nice dress by the way, your ankles look really alluring in it.

"Shut up!" Gwen laughed a little, looking down at herself. "What does she know?"

"I don't think she knows anything really, other than this isn't just a scientific experiment gone wrong. She knows we're hiding something, and something big, but she doesn't know what."

"So, is she going to tell her father?" Jack asked. "Because that could be a problem."

"I persuaded her that it would be a very bad idea."

"You and your persuasion methods." Jack looked over at Ianto, smirking.

"All part of Torchwood training, along with emotional blackmail."

"Well I think that I'm going to go an change out of these clothes." she pointed at the blue gunge on her blouse. "I'm sure iris has another lovely ensemble for me to wear."

"Me too," Ianto said, "It's starting to burn my skin."

"I'm going to stay here for a while and see if I can get my head around this thing." Jack took a deep breath and looked between the horse and the dead creature. "There's something wrong with the rift," he said thoughtfully. "We're miles from Cardiff and the rift is dumping it's junk out here; something is happening and it's not good."

hr

"Is that really necessary?" Tosh pointed to the creature that lay sedated on the autopsy table with it's wings tied down.

"You saw it going at that dog back there, do you really want that to be us?" Owen put the blue blood sample he had just taken into a specimen jar and turned to look at her across the table. "This little thing will probably grow into one of those huge things, and I have no idea how long these creatures take to grow, so I'm not taking any chances so-"

"Owen." Tosh stopped paying attention when she heard a faint bubbling coming from the jar that contained the blue gunge. "Owen, what's that?" she pointed to the jar.

"I don't know, I need to analyse it."

"No, I mean what's it doing?"

The smell from the warehouse was back and was seeping out from the container, sending out a sort of grey smoke. Owen walked over to it and touched the jar, jumping back instantly when he felt the heat through the glass. He held his hand away and inspected the red burn that started to appear.

"Hot?" Tosh asked.

"Just a bit."

The gunge started to bubble erratically and the jar wobbled a little; after a moment it stopped and suddenly, after about twenty seconds, vanished..

"What the-" Owen walked towards it and inspected the bench; the blue gunge had turned to a black stone, approximately an inch wide and the glass jar had gone completely. "This is going to be harder than I thought."

"A report has just come in of two bodies in an alley off princess street," tosh said looking at her PDA screen. "Large bites, possibly a dog attack."

"Dog my arse."

"Exactly my thought."

"I'll get the keys."

hr

Jack walked into his bedroom and looked at his shirt, still stained with the blue slime from the creature. He had found no other clues in the barn and the blue gunge was starting to blister his skin through his shirt. He took it off, and threw it in the basket in the corner.

"Striptease?" Ianto asked. "In the afternoon?"

Jack heard Ianto's voice from behind him, then the very distinctive sound of a old key turning in a lock.

"Hi."

Ianto took a seat on the bed and sat up against the headboard, watching Jack as he undressed. "Carry on, Captain."

"What are you doing hiding up here?"

"I'm not hiding; I'm waiting." He jumped up from the bed again and walked over to Jack, untucking his vest from the waistband of his trousers before yanking it over his head. "Waiting patiently for you."

"You just can't keep your hands off me today."

"Are you complaining?" he asked. "Because I can stop."

"I'm not complaining," Jack put his hand on Ianto's stomach and manoeuvred him back towards the bed, pushing him down on it, straddling him lightly. "Although, today is a rather strange day to want to shag me." He pushed Ianto back onto the bed and unfastened his buttons, sliding his shirt over his shoulders. "If I had known that big scary things with wings and teeth turned you on so much I would have made more of an effort at Halloween."

"I wasn't actually intending on shagging you," Ianto told him. "I was thinking more of stress-relief."

"Stress-relief?" Jack asked, a little offended. He climbed off Ianto and stood above him, looking down. "I'm stress-relief?"

"No." Ianto sat up and shimmied to the edge, putting his hands on Jack's belt.

"I don't think I understand."

"I'm iyour/i stress relief." He unfastened the Captain's belt, never removing his eyes from his gaze.

Jack raised an eyebrow when Ianto slid the trousers over his hips and pulled him closer.

"You're offering me stress relief in the form of-"

"Only if you want it."

"What happened to not getting too close?" Jack asked. "Not that I'm resisting."

"We broke that rule this morning and I don't see the point on having another pointless conversation about it." He hooked his fingers inside Jack's underwear and threatened to pull them down.

"You do make some very good points."

Ianto lowered his head and planted a trail of soft kisses across Jack's stomach, then pulled down the material a little; he looked up. "That thing could have killed you."

"It didn't." Jack said, his hand moving to cup the Welshman's cheek as he looked up.

"It could've."

"It was never going to kill me."

"I'd be lost in this world without you." Ianto lowered his head and sucked on the older man's hip. His tongue swept across the skin, sucking him into his mouth. He yanked down Jack's underwear and dragged his tongue over Jack's body, tracing a trail from his left hip and over to his right.

"Oh God." Jack looked down at the Welshman and tangled his fingers in his hair, pulling him gently towards him. "You're going to kill me with a mouth like that."

Ianto's hands moved around Jack's back and traced his spine, gripping his backside before sliding them around the back of his thighs, pulling him in. His tongue reversed its previous trail and moved back across Jack's hip, sucking in the skin before making his way down his thigh.

Jack's breaths were harsh and desperate as he felt the warmth of Ianto's lips cross his thigh; he whimpered when the Welshman bypassed his goal and worked his way back up towards his hipbone.

"Jack!" Gwen's voice filtered through the door.

"Bad time," he groaned. "I'm changing."

Ianto chose that moment to move his hands around from Jack's thighs and wrap his fingers around his cock, stroking him slowly as he locked his eyes into an intense gaze.

"It's the creature," she said.

Ianto followed the path of his hand with his tongue, and smiled when he felt Jack's hand grip his hair a little, being careful not to force him. He pulled Jack in closer, taking his length into his warm mouth.

"Oh!" Jack gasped loudly and looked down at the Welshman whose eyes looked up at him, dark and sultry. "It can wait five minutes." Ianto licked Jack's length slowly with the tip of his tongue. "Ten minutes."

"Jack!" she shouted through the door. "It's gone,"


	11. Chapter 11

Ianto and Gwen followed Jack into the barn, now all in fresh clothing, and crouched down beside him on the ground.

"What is it?" Ianto asked

"It appears to be a stone," Jack said.

In the corner, where Jack and Ianto had dragged the body of the beast, was now empty save for a large black stone. It measured no more than four inches in width and looked like an everyday stone that you might find in the garden. Jack reached out towards the object and touched it with the back of his hand; it was cold and smooth to the touch. He picked it up; it was light, lighter than an ordinary stone of that size and it took on his heat, warming at his touch.

"This," Jack said, holding up the stone. "Is no ordinary stone. This an environmentally friendly alien."

Ianto rose an eyebrow. "A what?"

"An environmentally friendly alien," he repeated. "I've seen it before. Around the twenty-fifth century they realise that the environment seriously needs preserving, so technology is created to compress all waste material into minerals that can be used as a renewable sort of fossil fuel." He pointed to it. "This is future coal."

Gwen and Ianto looked at each other and then at Jack.

"What?" he said, "you don't think that aliens have an eco-system to protect like everybody else?"

"So, that ages them to the twenty-fifth century?" Ianto asked, catching the stone when Jack tossed it to him.

"At least."

"So what now?" Gwen inspected the stone and Ianto handed it to her.

"We need to know if these creatures have come through the rift on their own, or whether they came through with us. If they came through themselves then there's a possibility that there's a temporal weakness somewhere around here."

"So we could get home?" Gwen asked. "That's good news, right?"

Not necessarily. Just because there's a temporal weakness, it doesn't mean it'll take us home, it just means it'll take us somewhere." He turned to Gwen. "Go and ask Iris if she has any camping gear."

"Why?"

"I want to know more about these things, and the only way to do that is to observe; I want to camp out tonight and do some surveillance."

"Okay." Gwen handed Jack the stone and wandered off in the direction of the farmhouse.

Ianto looked at Jack, putting his hands on his hips in that way he always did when he was anxious.

"What?"

"On your own?" Ianto asked, "you're going to camp out here alone when there's the possibility that one of those things could attack again?"

"Yes, unless I have a volunteer."

"Our last camping trip wasn't a success," Ianto reminded him. "If you remember, I ended up with a meat-cleaver to my throat."

"That's why we're going to be on our guard this time."

"You don't know what they're capable of, you don't know what they can do Jack. What will you do if there's more than one of them?"

"I don't know."

"Or, what if there's a whole herd of them."

"I don't know!" he repeated. "I don't know anything. We don't have any equipment, or any weapons or any archive to refer to. We have nothing except for what we know, and y'know what?"

"What?"

"I'm actually scared this time." Jack distanced himself from Ianto and looked down at the ground. "I don't know why they're here or what they want, or even if they want anything at all. I have no idea how to get rid of them."

"We'll work it out, we always do."

"What if this is because of us, and these creatures are here because we messed with the rift? I don't want to be responsible for that."

Ianto closed the gap and kissed Jack's lips softly, pushing him into the shadows to move away from view. Jack wrapped his arms around him and deepened the kiss, only to be pushed away a little after a moment.

"I'm sorry, It's the best distraction I know of." Ianto put his hands on the side of Jack's neck. "Kissing you seems to be the only guaranteed way to shut you up."

"What happened to your rules?" Jack asked.

"I can break the rules on special occasions."

"Really?"

"It was probably a very unwise move, I admit."

"I don't think so." Jack put his hands on the younger man's stomach and guided him further into the darkness of the building.

"What are you doing?"

"I can break the rules, too."

"No." Ianto moved the older man's hands away from his stomach. "The moment passed."

"Iris is with Gwen, Joseph went into town to run some errands, who's going to see?" Jack pressed a kiss against against his neck.

"Jack-" Ianto moved away a little.

"Have you ever had sex in a barn?"

"I'm not answering that." Ianto let him push him into the darkest corner. "I dont want to encourage you any more than I already have."

"I've always thought sex in a barn was a huge turn on, ." He untucked Ianto's shirt from his trousers and slipped his fingers underneath, moving layers until he reached his skin. "Haven't you?"

"I'm not having sex with you in a barn in the middle or the day."

Jack opened his mouth to speak.

"Or the night," Ianto said quickly. "This is not going to happen."

"I can imagine you all spread out in a barn." Jack started to trace circles on the Welshman's stomach and moved his lips to his ear.

"Jack-" Ianto leaned into Jack's and whimpered a little when he felt his teeth brush gently against his earlobe.

"I think it would be really hot."

"Getting caught isn't."

"And who says we'll get caught?" Jack's fingers brushed Ianto's stomach again, creating a trail from one side to the other. "We could spend hours in here without anyone even realising that we're missing."

Ianto put his hands on Jack's shoulders to push him away, but found himself melting into him when he pushed him gently against the wall and raked his short nails across his stomach.

"Jack." he muttered his name weakly, resting his head against the wall. "Don't."

Jack unfastened the buttons of Ianto's shirt and pushed it over his shoulders, then clawed at his undershirt, pushing it halfway up his chest. His lips moved to the Welshman's neck and his hands roamed his torso. "

It's your own fault," he said, "if you hadn't started something upstairs fifteen minutes ago then I wouldn't have you pinned against a wall in a barn."

"You wouldn't?"

Jack pondered and then broke into a smile on Ianto's neck.

"Alright, so maybe I would, but you make me so much worse." He moved his mouth to Ianto's lips and kissed him softly, nipping his bottom lip between his teeth and sucking on it.

Ianto wrapped his arms around him finally, pulling his body against him; one of his hands roamed Jack's back, finding its way under his shirt, whilst the other tangled in his hair. His fingers ran through the Captain's hair and gripped it, pulling a little at the edges as he pulled his lips closer.

"We should be working," Ianto mumbled between kisses, fighting off Jack's mouth so he could speak. Jack hung off his bottom lip, sucking it into his mouth as he spoke, before moving to kiss his jaw and neck. "The thing just vanished," he said weakly. "We really should investigate the- the-"

"The thing?" Jack suggested..

"Yeah. We should investigate the thing."

"We have five minutes to spare," Jack mumbled.

Suddenly, Ianto pushed him back a little. "Five minutes?"

"Or ten." Jack moved back to the Welshman's neck. "It's probably not going to be as drawn out as I would like. You got me pretty riled up before."

Ianto shoved him away to arms length. "Well that's romantic," he said, "hey here's a barn lets have a quickie; typical."

Jack pushed Ianto back against the wall and pinned his hands softly by his side. "You cannot be insulted," he whispered, kissing the Welshman's neck. "You can't turn me on to the point of needing to pin you up against a wall in a barn and then be insulted because I tell you that I can't hold out."

Ianto slipped his hands away from Jack's grasp and pushed him away a little. "Look at me and read my lips." He tilted the older man's face to look directly into his eyes. "I am not having sex with you in a barn".

"Don't you want a little roll around in the hay?" Jack asked. "Literally."

Ianto let himself be pushed back against the wall again. "We're a stones throw from the house. Anyone could hear us."

Jack kissed Ianto's neck softly. "Then we'll just have to be really quiet."

"So. You want our first time to be a quickie in a barn, holding back in case someone hears us?" he asked, "that's not going to happen."

"Why?"

"I know you," Ianto said. "you're not the quiet type."

Jack chuckled and leaned into Ianto's ear. "Then you better find something to gag me with."

"Well if you really want me to hold back and go through the motions I can," Ianto said. "But that would mean that it wouldn't be half as good as it could be." he felt Jack's lips come to a stop on his neck. "Because it could be amazing."

Jack stepped back. "One day you're going to kill me."

Ianto pulled Jack back by his shirt and kissed him softly, then moved away, letting his thumbs rest on Jack's cheeks.

"What we're doing is risky enough without being reckless."

"I know."

"This behaviour is exactly how I ended up in a mess the last time."

"In a barn?"

"I want you now probably more than I have ever wanted anyone, but if I'm weak , if I give in to you and we're found out then that's it."

"I know," Jack's voice cracked and then he took a breath to control it. "You know, I would die for you a thousand times if you would let me."

"Don't say that," Ianto gave Jack a broken smile. "I would never be worth that to you, nobody's worth that to you."

"You are."" Jack leaned in to Ianto, resting their foreheads together. "If I could sell my soul to get you home then I would. I would do anything for you to be in a world that doesn't make you look like you're scared to breathe when you're with me."

"Sometimes I'm not scared to breathe, i just can't. You look at me and your eyes burn through my skin so much that i can feel the heat. I forget how to breathe for a moment until you stop." he looked up at Jack; his gaze was heavy, and Ianto could feel his uneven breath heat his lips. "Jack, losing myself in you is more terrifying than getting lost in time could ever be."

Jack moved closer and kissed him softly, putting his hand on the Welshman's chin to draw him closer; he didn't deepen the kiss, instead he moved away just a little.

"We should get out of here," Ianto said. "We can't let big winged beast things take over rural Wales now can we?"

"Certainly not." Jack looked at him for a moment and chuckled. "You're a mess."

"Well that's not my fault; you mauled me."

"I didn't maul, I don't maul," Jack said straightening Ianto's shirt over his shoulders, "I grope."

"Like there's a difference."

"Groping is a friendly maul," he explained, casually fastening the buttons. "I'm harmless."

"Of course you are," Ianto straightened Jack's ruffled hair as he fastened his shirt. "Gorgeous and harmless. It's very rare to find both qualities together."

"You forgot to mention painfully handsome."

Ianto straightened Jack's collar and let his hands trail down the shirt. "I'm not going to encourage you." He pushed himself away from the older man and headed for the door. "We should go and sort out the camping stuff."

* * *

Owen walked up the steps from the autopsy area wearing his white coat and leant on the wall lethargically. "Okay, so I extracted some more of that blue gunge from the specimen, but unfortunately I can't do much to analyse it."

"Why not?"

"Because every time I come close the bloody stuff vanishes and takes my equipment with it."

"So what now?"

"Well-" Owen walked over to her, trailing his chair behind him, and then sat opposite her, "I think it's safe to say that this stuff should be kept as far away from people as possible. So, I want you get on to the boys in blue and get a cordon secured within a mile radius of the warehouse."

"And what else do we do?"

"Bugger if I know."

"If Jack was here-"

"Well he's not. He's not here, Gwen isn't here and neither is Ianto; it's just you and me and we have to do the best that we can until we can get them back." Owen stood up and made his way back towards the autopsy area.

"And what if we can't?" Tosh asked, forcing him to stop and turn around. "What if they're stuck?"

"Then we have to replace them," he said. "But we're not giving up yet."

"I don't know if I completely trust your ability anymore."

"Well then, don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out."

"Fine, you want me to go?" Tosh picked up her things. "You think you can handle this on your own?"

"I do as it happens."

"Fine, do it on your own." She pulled her jacket off the back of her chair and headed for the door. "Do it all on your own."

"I dont need you anyway!"

* * *

"Camping?" Iris asked Gwen, perplexed. "Captain Harkness wants to go camping?"

"Yes?"

"Whatever for?"

"Jack is very interested in stargazing."

"I have a tent, but it's not very good,"

Gwen smiled kindly, helping Iris peel some vegetables. "He won't mind."

"He'll have to go and get it himself, we have guests coming tomorrow and staying until overnight and with them taking up that room I have to set the other one up, so I'm too busy to fetch it out."

"I'm sure he can manage."

"How's your ankle?"

"Getting better, but still really painful."

"Y'know, there's one thing I hate more in life than a liar." She said. "And that's three liars."

"Iris-"

"Your ankle is fine, I saw you running into the barn earlier."

"I can explain."

"Ever since you turned up there's been nothing but trouble. First, that night you came, that horrible smell in the air, then twelve of our chickens got ripped to pieces in one night and now those dragons?" She put her knife down, leaning across the table to look at her. "What are you?"

"What happened to your chickens?"

"I want answers and I want them now."

"Your chickens!" She repeated. "What happened."

"They had their heads bitten off by a fox, or a dog or something, but much bigger."

"Iris?" Gwen got up and dashed around the table, grabbing the knife from her hand. She pulled her up. "Show me where."

"Are you going to tell me the truth?"

"We catch monsters," Gwen said. "We catch them and we stop them from hurting people, but we can't stop them if you don't help us."

"You've lied to me, all of you!"

"I know."

"Even Mr. Jones." Iris slumped down on her stool. "He seemed so honest, no nice. You all seemed so nice, so trustworthy, but none of you are."

"We just want to help you."

"You can help by leaving," she said. "You can stay in the house tonight, but after than I want you all gone."

"And we'll go, but I do need for you to show me the chickens."

* * *

Tosh sat at home looking through her collection of mythology books, sticking postits on all the appropriate pages. She took a drink of her wine, knocking it back before walking towards the kitchen to refill it. A knock on the door made her change her route and she opened it, empty glass it hand.

Owen stood in the doorway, his short leather jacket protecting him from the rain.

"Come back."

"Go away, Owen."

"No." He stops the door with his foot when Tosh tired to close it, then pushed it open fully and leaned on the doorframe. "I'm an arse Tosh, but sometimes that's just how I am."

"Sometimes?"

"Most of the time."

Tosh gave up and walked inside, leaving him to follow.

"It's really hard, Tosh. I'm trying to keep us hoping but I can't if I don't have your support and your help. I can't do it on my own."

"I know I'm not Gwen. I don't have her toughness, or her style or her other assets."

"Tosh-"

"But I am trying so hard to get through this."

"I need you," he said.

"You told me to go, you said you didn't need me."

"I say a lot of things I don't mean, I'm a man, it's genetic." He puts his hands on her face. "Don't leave me, Tosh."

"You sound like you're begging me." Tosh smiled a little. "You never beg."

"I'm desperate and you're all I've got left. I gave up everything for this job and built my whole life around it, around you lot. I've got nothing else, only you."

"Okay."

"Grab your coat then, we have work to do."

"Where are we going?"

"Our dead bodies have a secret, I didn't notice it right away because I didn't check right away, too busy trying to get the others back and then the creepy mythical bat things happened."

"What's the secret?"

"They're too clean, Tosh."

"Too clean?" Tosh grabbed her coat as Owen pulled her towards the front door. "What do you mean?"

"They're in their late twenties. No signs of any fillings or medical procedures, no tramp stamps or tatoos, no piercings."

"So?"

"How many fillings do you have?" He asked as he pulled the door shut.

"Two."

"What's the likelihood of four people that age having nothing? They have no credit cards, no debit cards, no mobile phone for God's sake. They're human, I checked their blood, but they're out of place. They have no dental records, no medical records that I can find, no fingerprint or Dna records."

"What do you think?"

" Our murder victims are from the past, I'd bet my life on it."

"If that's true they must've gone missing at some time. Someone has to have reported them missing at some point if they're at least from recent times. I'll search missing person records as far back as they go. If we find them, we find a time they went missing and then we know where this all started."

"See, I told you I needed you."

* * *

Gwen followed iris into the building where they kept the chickens; a panel on the side of the wooden building had been ripped through, then patched up with spare bits of timber and a few nails. She investigated the blood on the ground, looking at the splatters on the floor and walls. Some stray feathers were still attached, matted into the blood and some even appeared to be on the ceiling. If Gwen were to hazard a guess she would say that the animals had struggled before being thrown against the wall.

"When did this happen?" Gwen asked

"The night before last."

"Did you see it?"

"No, just the animal," Iris said. "It got out the same way it got in, through the hole it ripped in the side."

"What did it look like?" Gwen asked, crouching down to look more closely at the damage to the wood panels.. "Was it big?"

"I'm not sure, it was hunched over too much. But it had big teeth, I remember that."

"And this has never happened before?"

"We sometimes get a few foxes around here, or wild dogs that have a go, but not like this. nothing that rips holes in walls to get to them."

"I'm sorry this is happening," Gwen said.

"Can you stop it?"

"I dont know."

"So what's the point of you?" Iris asked.

"Look, I know you're angry and you think we lied to you-"

"You did lie!" She bit angrily. "You all lied to me, all of you."

"Its for your own good. The things we see, they're not supposed to be here" Gwen stood up and walked over to her, putting her hand on Iris' shoulder to try and calm her.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"I Dont know, but we'll figure something out," Gwen promised. "We will."

"We were fine here before you all came along." Iris said, looking around at the remaining hens, still visibly shaken. "Maybe if you go, then things will go back to normal."

"Or they won't."

"You're all leaving tomorrow, so we'll find out soon enough."

"I think you need us here to help you," Gwen said, her tone soft. "You need us or you could be in danger."

"If we're in danger it's because you made us."

"We'll put it right."

"You've all lied to us, how can I trust anything you say?"

"I don't know how to prove that we're trustworthy, but we are."

"Gwen." Iris sighed. "You might not understand this, but this farm is our life and our livelihood, we cant always afford the luxury of second chances."

"I'm sorry, but I'm being honest with you now and the lying ends here."

"Its too late for sorry, I want you out tomorrow," Iris said walking away. "All of you."

* * *

"Remind me why this is necessary?" Ianto asked, hammering the last tent peg into the ground and stepping back to admire his work. The tent was small and didn't look waterproof, with nothing but a tie-back to keep the cold out.

"I want to see if these things are nocturnal and if there are any more of them." Jack's hand appeared from inside the tent and grabbed the Welshman's wrist, pulling him inside. "I think it's pretty cosy, don't you?"

Inside, the tent was kitted out with a thin groundsheet, a lamp, a tin thermos, a pair of binoculars and a make-shift bed; two pillows lay side-by-side with a few blankets to keep them warm.

"It better not rain," Ianto said. "And those blankets better be thick. I'm freezing."

"I got you a present." Jack sat down on the ground and threw Ianto a wooly hat. "This should keep your head warm."

Ianto pulled it on over his head and glared at the older man who stifled a laugh.

"What about the rest of me?" Ianto asked.

"Well, I can take care of that."

"For God's sake." Ianto rolled his eyes dramatically and sat down beside him. "You're insatiable."

"You make that sound like a bad thing."

"Tonight is not the night for a stakeout Jack, I'm tired. It's been a really long day."

"You can go to sleep," Jack said, lying down under the blanket. He tapped the space behind him. "I'll wake you if I want you."

"That's a dangerous thought."

The Welshman kicked off his shoes, then climbed under the blankets beside Jack, tucking himself underneath the blanket. He pulled his jacket tight around him, then brought the blanket up to his neck. "This better be worth it."

"It will be."

"And keep your hands to yourself. This is not Brokeback Mountain."


End file.
